liiral (£sSi[ws 




^^^ 





rij« Libi- 



Luu ±ttto A. J Ijuw 



JSTew-York : 

G . P . Putnam and G o m p a n )' 

1 8 f) 3 . 






RURAL ESSAYS. 



;^ V BY 



Arjf DOWNING. 



EDITED, WITH A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR, 

BY 

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS; 

AND 

A LETTER TO HIS FRIENDS, 

BY 

FREDERIKA BREMER. 



NEW-YORK : 
GEORGE P. PUTNAM AND COMPANY, 



10 PARK PLACE, 

M,DOCC.LIII. 



A 

>0 






^ _.^ 



^ 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by 

GEORGE P. PUTNAM k CO.. 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New-Xork. 



GiFT 
ESTATE OF 
WJLLiAM C. RIVES 
x.APfiiJL, 1840 



JOHN F. TKO\\, 

Pkintek and Stekeotyper, 

49 Ann-streot. 



P E E F A C E. 



rPHIS posthumous volume completes the series of Mr. 
-^ Downing's works. It comprises, with one or two ex- 
ceptions, all his editorial papers in the " Horticulturist." 
The Editor has preferred to retain their various temporary- 
allusions, because they serve to remind the reader of the 
circumstances under which the articles were prepared. 
Mr. Downing had designed a work upon the Shade-Trees of 
the United States, but left no notes upon the subject. 

In the preparation of the memoir, the Editor has been 
indebted to a sketch in the Knickerbocker Magazine, by 
Mrs. Monell, of Newburgh, to Mr. Wilder's eulogy before 
the Pomological Congress, and to an article in the " New- 
York Quarterly," by Clarence Cook, Esq. 

The tribute to the genius and character of Downing 



by Miss Bremer, although addressed to all his friends, has 
the unreserved warmth of a private letter. No man has 
lived in vain who has inspired such regard in such a 
woman. 

New-Yo]£K, April, 1853. 



CONTENTS 



MEMOIRS xi 

LETTER FROM MISS BREMER Ld 



HORTICULTURK 

L Introductory ••..... 8 

II. Hints on Flower-Gardens ..... 6 

III. Influence of Horticulture . . . . .18 

IV. A Talk with Flora and Pomona . . , . 18 
V. A Chapter on Roses . . . . . .24 

VI. A Chapter on Green-Houses . . . .35 

VII. On Feminine Taste in Rural Af'fairs . . . .44 

VIII. Economy in Gardening ..... 55 

IX. A Look about us . . . ... .60 

X. A Spring Gossip ...... 65 

XI. The Great Discovery in Vegetation . . . . T2 

XII. State and Prospects of Horticulture ... 7*7 

XIII. American vs. British Horticulture . . . .83 

XTV. On the Drapery of Cottages and Gardens . . 88 



CONTENTS. 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

I. TuE Philosoi'uy of Rural Taste 
II. The Beautiful in Ground 

III. Hints to Rural Improvers 

IV. A FEW Hints on Landscape Gardening 

V. On the Mistakes of Citizens in Country Life 

VI. Citizens retiring to the Country . 

VII. A Talk about Public Parks and Gardens 
VIII. The New-York Park 

IX. Public Cemeteries and Public Gardens 
X. How to choose a Site for a Country-Seat 
XI. How TO arrange Country Places 
. XII. The Management of large Country Places 
X^HL Country Places in Autumn 
XIV. A Chapter on Lawns 
XV. Mr, Tudor's Garden at Nahant 
XVI. A Visit to Montgomery Place 



PAOE 

101 
106 
110 
119 
123 
131 
138 
147 
154 
160 
166 
172 
177 
181 
183 
192 



RURAL ARCHITECTURK 

I. A Few Words on Rural Architecture 
II. Moral Influence of Good Houses 
in. A few Words on our Progress in Building 
IV. Cockneyism in the Country 
V. On the Improvements of Country Villages 
VI. Our Country Villages 
VII. On Semple Rural Cottages 
Vni. On the Color of Country Houses 
IX. A short Chapter on Country Churches 
X. A Chapter on School-Houses . 
XL How TO Build Ice-Houses , 

XII. The Favorite Poison of America 



205 
209 
214 
224 
229 
236 
244 
252 
260 
265 
271 
278 



TREES. 
I. The Beautiful in a Tree 
II. How TO Popularize the Taste for Planting 



289 
293 



CONTENTS. vn 

PAGE 

III. On Planting Shade-Trees ..... 299 



■/ 



IV. Trees in Towns and Villages . . . . 303 

V. Shade-Trees IN Cities •. ..... 311 

VI. Rare Evergreen Trees . . . . . 319 

VII. A Word in Favor of Evergreens . . . . 327 

VIII. The Chinese Magnolias . . . ... 335 

~^IX. The Neglected American Plants . . . . 339 

X. The Art of Transplanting Trees . . . . . 343 

VjXJ. On Transplanting Large Trees . . ... 349 

XII. A Chapter on Hedges ..... 357 

XIII. On the Employment of Ornamental Trees and Shrubs in North 

America . . ... . . . 374 

AGRICULTURE. 

I. Cultivators, — ^The Great Industrial Class of America . 385 

IL The National Ignorance of the Agricultural Interest . 390 

III. The Home Education of the Rural Districts . . . 396 

IV. How to enrich the Soil . . ... . 404 

V. A Chapter on Agricultural Schools .... 410 

VI. fA. Few Words on the Kitchen Garden . . . 416 

VILr A Chat IN THE Kitchen Garden . . . .421 

VHI. Washington, the Farmer .... 427 



FRUIT. 

I. A Few Words on Fruit Culture .... 435 
II. The Fruits in Convention ..... 442 

ni. The Philosophy of Manuring Orchards . . . 452 

IV. The Vineyards of the West .... 463 

V. On the Improvement of Vegetable Races . . . 468 

LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

I. Warwick Castle: Kenilworth : Stratford-on-Avon . 476 

II. Kew-Gardens ; New Houses of Parliament : A Nobleman's 

Seat ....... 485 

III. Chatsworth ....... 497 



VIU CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

IV. English Travelling : Haddon Hall : Matlock : The Derby 

Arboretum: Botanic Garden in Regent's Park . oK- 

V. The Isle of Wight ...... 522 

VI. WoBURN Abbey ...... 532 

VII. Dropmore. — English Railways. — Society . . . 538 

VIII. The London Parks ..... 5-17 



MEMOIR 



MEMOIR 



ANDKEW JACKSON DOWNING was born at New- 
burgh, upon the Hudson, on the spot where he always 
lived, and which he alwa3'"S loved more than any other, on 
the 30th of October, 1815. His father and mother were 
both natives of Lexington, Massachusetts, and, upon their 
marriage, removed to Orange County, New- York, where 
they settled, some thirty or forty miles from Newburgh. 
Presently, however, they came from the interior of the 
county to the banks of the river. The father built a cot- 
tage upon the higlilands of Newburgh, on the skirts of 
the to^vn, and there his five children were born. He had 
begun life as a wheelwright, but abandoned the trade 
to become a nurseryman, and after working prosperously 
in his garden for twenty-one years, died in 1822, 

Andrew was born many years after the other children. 
He was the child of his parents' age, and, for that reason, 
very dear. He began to talk before he could walk, when 
he was only nine months old, and the wise village gossips 
shook their heads in his mother's little cottage, and pro- 
phesied a bright career for the precocious child. At eleven 
months that career manifestly began, in the gossips' eyes, 
by his walking bravely about the room : a handsome. 



cheerful, intelligent child, but quiet and thoughtful, pet- 
ted by the elder brothers and sister, standing soriietimes 
in the door, as he grew older, and watching the shadows 
of the clouds chase each other over the FishldU mountains 
upon the opposite side«of the river ; soothed by the uni- 
versal silence of the country, while the constant occupation 
of the father, and of the brother who worked with him in 
the nursery, made the boy serious, by necessarily leaving 
him much alone. 

In the little cottage upon the Newburgh highlands, 
looking down upon the broad bay which the Hudson river 
there makes, before winding in a narrow stream through 
the highlands of West Point, and looking eastward across 
the river to the Fishkill hiUs, which rise gradually from 
the bank into a gentle mountain boldness, and northward, 
up the river, to shores that do not obstruct the horizon, — 
passed the first years of the boy's life, thus early befriend- 
ing liim with one of the lovehest of landscapes. While his 
father and brother were pruning and grafting their trees, 
and the other brother was busily at work in the comb fac- 
tory, where he was employed, the young Andrew ran alone 
about the garden, playing his solitary games in the pre- 
sence of the scene whose influence helped to mould his life, 
and which, even so early, filled his mind with images of 
rural beauty. His health, like that of most children born 
in their parents' later years, was not at all robust. The 
father, watching the slight form glancing among his trees, 
and the mother, aware of her boy sitting silent and 
thoughtful, had many a pang of aj)prehension, which 
was not relieved by the ominous words of the gossips 
that it was " hard to raise these smart children," — the 
homely modern echo of the old Greek fancy, " Whom the 
gods love die young." 



MEMOIR. 



The mother, a thrifty housekeeper and a rehgious wo- 
man, occupied with her many cares, cooking, mending, 
scrubbing, and setting things to rights, probably looked 
forward with some apprehension to the future condition 
of her sensitive Benjamin, even if he lived. The dreamy, 
shy ways of the boy were not such as indicated the stern 
stuff that enables poor men's children to grapple with the 
world. Left to himself, his will began to grow imperious. 
The busy mother could not severely scold her ailing child ; 
but a sharp rebuke had probably often been pleasanter to 
him than the milder treatment that resulted from affec- 
tionate compassion, but showed no real sympathy. It 
is evident, from the tone in which he always spoke of 
his childhood, that his recollections of it were not alto- 
gether agreeable. It was undoubtedly clouded by a want 
of sympathy, which he could not understand at the time, 
but which appeared plainly enough when his genius came 
into play. It is the same kind of clouded childhood that 
so often occurs in hterary biography, where there was great 
mutual affection and no ill feeling, but a lack of that in- 
stinctive apprehension of motives and aims, which makes 
each one perfectly tolerant of each other. 

Wlien Andrew was seven years old, his father died, 
and his elder brother succeeded to the management of the 
nursery business. Andrew's developing tastes led him to 
the natural sciences, to botany and mineralogy. As he 
grew older he began to read the treatises upon these favor- 
ite subjects, and went, at length, to an academy at Mont- 
gomery, a town not far from Newburgh, and in the same 
county. Those who remember him here, speak of him as 
a thoughtful, reserved boy, looking fixedly out of his large, 
dark brown eyes, and carrying his brow a little incHued 
forward, as if slightly defiant. He was a poor boy, and 



XIV MEMOIR. 

very proud. Doubtless that indomitable will had already 
resolved that he should not be the least of the men that 
he and his schoolfellows would presently become. He 
was shy, and made few friends among the boys. He kept 
his own secrets, and his companions do not remember that 
he gave any hint, while at Montgomery Academy, of his 
l)eculiar power. Neither looking backward nor forward, 
was the prospect very fascinating to his dumb, and proba- 
bly a little dogged, ambition. Behind were the few first 
years of cljildhood, sickly, left much alone in the cottage 
and garden, with nothing in those around him (as he felt 
without knowing it) that strictly sympathized with him ; 
and yet, as always in such cases, of a nature whose devel- 
opment craved the most generous sympathy : these few 
years, too, cast among all the charms of a landscape which 
the FishkiU liills lifted from httleness, and the broad river 
inspired with a kind of grandeur ; years, which the univer- 
sal silence of the country, always so imposing to young 
imaginations, and the rainbow pomp of the year, as it 
came and went up and down the river-banks and over the 
mountains, and the general solitude of country life, were 
not very likely to enliven. Before, lay a career of hard 
work in a pursuit which rarely enriches the workman, with 
little apparent promise of leisure to pursue his studies or 
to follow his tastes. It is natural enough, that in the 
midst of such prospects, the boy, dehcately organized to 
appreciate his position, should have gone to his recitations 
and his play in a very silent — if not stern — manner, aU 
the more reserved and sUent for the firm resolution to 
master and not be mastered. It is hard to fancy that he 
was ever a blithe boy. The gravity of maturity came 
early upon him. Those who saw him only in later years 
can, probably, easily see the boy at Montgomery Academy, 



by fancying him quite as they knew him, less twenty or 
twenty-five years. One by one, the boys went from the 
academy to college, or into business, and when Andrew 
was sixteen years old, he also left the academy and return- 
ed home. 

He, too, had been hoping to go to college ; but the 
family means forbade. His mother, anxious to see him 
early settled, urged him, as his elder brothers were 
both doing well in business — the one as a nurseryman, 
and the other, who had left the comb factory, practis- 
ing ably and prosperously as a physician — to enter as 
a clerk into a drygoods store. That request explains 
the want of delight with which he remembered his 
childhood : because it shows that his good, kind mother, 
in the midst of her baking, and boihng, and darning the 
children's stockings, made no allowance — as how should 
she, not being able to perceive them — for the possibly 
very positive tastes of her boy. Besides, the first duty of 
each member of the poor household was, as she justly con- 
ceived, to get a Hving ; and as Andrew was a delicate 
child, and could not lift and carry much, nor brave the 
chances of an out-door occupation, it was better that he 
should be in the shelter of a store. He, however, a youth 
of sixteen years, fresh from the studies, and dreams, and 
hopes of the Montgomery Academy, found his first duty to 
be the gentle withstanding of his mother's wish ; and quite 
willing to " settle," if he could do it in his own way, 
joined his brother in the management of the nursery. 
He had no doubt of his vocation. Since it was clear that 
he must directly do something, his fine taste and exquisite 
appreciation of natural beauty, his love of natural forms, 
and the processes and phenomena of natural life, im- 
mediately determined his choice. Not in vain had his 



eyes first looked upon the mountains and the river. Those 
silent companions of his childhood claimed their own in 
the spirit with which the youth entered upon his profes- 
sion. To the poet's eye began to be added the philoso- 
pher's mind ; and the great spectacle of Nature which he 
had loved as beauty, began to enrich his life as knowledge. 
Yet I remember, as showing that with all his accurate 
science he was always a poet, he agreed in many con- 
versations that the highest enjoyment of beauty was 
quite independent of use ; and that while the pleasure of 
a botanist who could at once determine the family and 
species of a plant, and detail all the peculiarities and fit- 
ness of its structure, was very great and inappreciable, 
yet that it was upon a lower level than the instinctive 
delight in the beauty of the same flower. The botanist 
could not have the highest pleasure in the flower if he were 
not a poet. The poet would increase the variety of liis 
pleasure, if he were a botanist. It was this constant sub- 
jection of science to the sentiment of beauty that made 
him an artist, and did not leave him an artisan ; and his 
science was always most accurate and j)i"ofound, because 
the very depth and dehcacy of his feeling for beauty gave 
him the utmost patience to learn, and the greatest rapidity 
to adapt, the means of organizing to the eye the ideal 
image in his mind. 

About tliis time the Baron de Liderer, the Austrian 
Consul Greneral, who had a summer retreat in Newburgh, 
began to notice the youth, whose botanical and mineral- 
ogical tastes so harmonized with his own. Nature keeps 
fresh the feelings of her votaries, and the Baron, although 
an old man, made hearty friends with Downing ; and they 
explored together the hills and lowlands of the neighbor- 
hood, till it had no more vegetable nor mineral secrets from 



the enthusiasts. Downing always kept in the hall of his 
house, a cabinet, containing mineralogical specimens col- 
lected in these excursions. At the house of the Baron, 
also, and in that of his wealthy neighbor, Edward Arm- 
strong, Downing discovered how subtly cultivation refines 
men as well as plants, and there first met that polished 
society whose elegance and grace could not fail to charm 
him as essential to the most satisfactory intercourse, while 
it presented the most entire contrast to the associations of 
his childhood. It is not difficult to fancy the lonely child, 
playing unheeded in the garden, and the dark, shy boy, of 
the Montgomery Academy, meeting with a thrill of satisfac- 
tion, as if he had been waiting for them, the fine gentle- 
men and ladies at the Consul General's, and the wealthy 
neighbor's, Mr. Armstrong, at whose country-seat he was in- 
troduced to Mr. Charles Augustus Murray, when, for the first 
time, he saw one of the class that he never ceased to honor 
for their virtues and graces — the English gentleman. At 
this time, also, the figure of Raphael Hoyle, an English 
landscape painter, flits across his history. Congenial in 
taste and feehng, and with varying knowledge, the two 
young men rambled together over the country near New- 
burgh, and while Hoyle caught upon canvas the colors 
and forms of the flowers, and the outline of the landscape, 
Downing instructed him in their history and habits, until 
they wandered from the actual scene into discussions dear 
to both, of art, and life, and beauty ; or the artist piqued 
the imagination of his friend with stories of English 
parks, and of ItaUan vineyards, and of cloud-capped Alps, 
embracing every zone and season, as they rose, — while 
the untravelled youth looked across the river to the Fish- 
kill hills, and imagined Switzerland. This soon ended. 
Raphael Hoyle died. The living book of travel and 



MEMOIR. 



romantic exj)erience, in which the youth who had wandered 
no farther than to Montgomery Academy and to the top 
of the South Beacon, — the liighest hill of tlie Fishkill 
range, — ^had so deeply read of scenes and a life that suited 
him, was closed forever. 

Little record is left of these years of application, of 
work, and study. The Fishkill liills and the broad river, 
in whose presence he had always lived, and the quiet 
country around Newburgh, which he had so thoroughly ex- 
plored, began to claim some visible token of their influence. 
It is pleasant to know that his first Uterary works were re- 
cognitions of their charms. It shows the intellectual integ- 
rity of the man that, despite glowing hopes and restless 
ambition for other things, his first essay was written from 
his experience ; it was a description of the " Danskamer," 
or Devil's Dancing-Ground — a point on the Hudson, 
seven miles above Newburgh — publislied in the New- York 
Mirror. A description of Beacon Hill followed. 

He wrote, then, a discussion of novel-reading, and some 
botanical papers, which were published in a Boston journal. 
Whether he was discouraged by the ill success of these 
attempts, or perceived that he was not yet sufiicient mas- 
ter of his resources to present them projjerly to the public, 
does not appear, but he published nothing more for several 
years. Perhaps he knew that upon the subjects to which his 
natural tastes directed his studies, nothing but experience 
spoke with authority. Whatever the reason of his silence, 
however, he worked on unyieldingly, studying, proving, 
succeeding ; finding time, also, to read the poets and the 
philosophers, and to gain that famiharity with elegant 
literature which always graced his own composition. Of 
this period of his life, little record, but great results, 
remain. With his pen, and books, and microscoj)e, in the 



red house, and his pruning-knife and sharp eye in the 
nursery and garden, he was learning, adapting, and tri- 
umphing, — and also, doubtless, dreaming and resolving. 
If any stranger wishing to purchase trees at the nursery 
of the Messrs. Downing, in Newburgh, had visited that 
pleasant town, and transacted business with the younger 
partner, he would have been perplexed to understand why 
the younger partner with his large knowledge, his remark- 
able power of combination, his fine taste, his rich cultiva- 
tion, his singular force and precision of expression, his evi- 
dent mastery of his profession, was not a recognized 
authority in it, and why he had never been heard of For 
it was remarkable in Dovming, to the end, that he always 
attracted attention and excited speculation. The boy of 
the Montgomery Academy carried that slightly defiant 
head into the arena of life, and seemed always too much a 
critical observ^er not to challenge wonder, sometimes, even,' 
to excite distrust. That was the eye which in the vege- 
table world had scanned the law through the appearance, 
and followed through the landscape the elusive line of 
beauty. It was a fuU, firm, serious eye. He did not 
smile with his eyes as many do, but they held you as in a 
grasp, looking from under their cover of dark brows. 

The young man, now twenty years old or more, and 
hard at work, began to visit the noble estates upon the 
banks of the Hudson, to extend his experience, and confirm 
his nascent theories of art in landscape-gardening. Study- 
ing in the red cottage, and working in the nursery upon 
the Newburgh highlands, he had early seen that in a new, 
and unworked, and quite boundless country, with every 
variety of kindly climate and available soil, where fortunes 
arose in a night, an opportunity was ofiered to Art, of 
achieving a new and characteristic triumph. To touch 



XX 



the continent lying chaotic, in mountain, and lake, and 
forest, with a finger that should develop all its resources 
of beauty, for the admiration and benefit of its children, 
seemed to him a task worthy the highest genius. This 
was the dream that dazzled the silent years of his life 
in the garden, and inspired and strengthened him in 
every exertion. As he saw more and more of the results 
of this spirit in the beautiful Hudson country-seats, he 
was, naturally, only the more resolved. To lay out one 
garden well, in conformity with the character of the sur- 
rounding landscape, in obedience to the truest taste, and 
to make a man's home, and its grounds, and its accesso- 
ries, as genuine works of art as any picture or statue that 
the owner had brought over the sea, was, in his mind, the 
first step toward the great result. 

At the various places upon the river, as he visited them 
from time to time, he was received as a gentleman, a scho- 
lar, and the most practical man of the party, would neces- 
sarily be welcomed. He sketched, he measured ; " in a 
walk he plucks from an overhanging bough a single leaf, 
examines its color, form and structure ; inspects it with 
his microscope, and, having recorded his observations, pre- 
sents it to his friend, and invites him to study it, as sug- 
gestive of some of the first principles of rural architecture 
and economy," No man enjoyed society more, and none 
ever lost less time. His pleasure trips from point to point 
upon the river were the excursions of the honey-bee into 
the flower. He returned richly laden ; and the young 
partner, feeling from childhood the necessity of entire self- 
dependence, continued to live much alone, to be reserved, 
but always affable and gentle. These travels were usually 
brief, and strictly essential to his education. He was wisely 
getting ready ; it would be so fatal to speak without autho- 



MEMOIR. 



rity, and authority came only with much observation and 
many years. 

But, during these victorious incursions into the realms 
of exi3erience, the younger partner had himself, been con- 
quered. Directly opposite the red cottage, upon the 
other side of the river, at Fishkill Landing, lay, under 
blossoming locust trees, the estate and old family mansion 
of John P. De Wint, Esq. The place had the charms of a 
" moated grange," and was quite the contrast of the ele- 
gant care and incessant cultivation that marked the grounds 
of the young man in Newburgh. But the fine old place, 
indolently lying in luxuriant decay, was the seat of bound- 
less hospitality and social festivity. The spacious piazzas, 
and the gently sloping lawn, which made the foreground of 
one of the most exquisite ghmpses of the Hudson, rang all 
summer long with happy laughter. Under those blossom- 
ing locust trees were walks that led to the shore, and the 
moon hanging over Cro' Nest recalled to all loiterers along 
the bank the loveliest legends of the river. In winter the 
revel shifted from the lawn to the frozen river. One such 
gay household is sufficient nucleus for endless enjoyment. 
From the neighboring West Point, only ten miles distant, 
came gallant young officers, boating in summer, and skat- 
ing in winter, to serenade under the locusts, or join the 
dance upon the lawn. Whatever was young and gay was 
drawn into the merry maelstrom, and the dark-hau'ed boy 
from Newburgh, now grown, somehow, to be a gentleman 
of quiet and poHshed. manners, found himself, even when in 
the grasp of the scientific coils of Parmentier, Kepton, Price, 
Loudon, Lindley, and the rest, — or busy with knife, clay, 
and grafts, — dreaming of the grange beyond the river, and 
of the Marianna he had found there. 

Summer lay warm upon the hills and river ; the land- 



MEMOIR. 



scape was yet untouched by the scorching July heats ; 
and on the seventh of June, 1838, — he being then in his 
twenty-third year, — Downing was married to Caroline, 
eldest daughter of J. P. De Wint, Esq. At this time, 
he dissolved the business connection with his elder brother, 
and contiliued the nursery by himself There were other 
changes also. The busy mother of his childhood was busy 
no longer. She had now been for several years an invalid, 
unable even to walk in the garden. She continued to live 
in the little red cottage which Downing afterwards re- 
moved to make way for a green-house. Her sons were 
men now, and her daughter a woman. The necessity for 
her own exertion was passed, and her hold upon life was 
gradually loosened, until she died in 1839. 

Downing now considered himself ready to begin the 
career for which he had so long been preparing ; and very 
properly his first work was his own house, built in the gar- 
den of his father, and only a few rods from the cottage 
in which he was born. It was a simple house, in an Ehz- 
abethan style, by which he designed to prove that a beau- 
tiful, and durable, and convenient mansion, could be built 
as cheaply as a poor and tasteless temple, which seemed to 
be, at that time, the highest American conception of a 
fine residence. In this design he entirely succeeded. His 
house, which did not, however, satisfy his maturer eye, 
was externally very simple, but extremely elegant ; indeed, 
its chief impression was that of elegance. Internally it 
was spacious and convenient, very gracefully proportioned 
and finished, and marked every where by the same spirit. 
Wherever the eye feU, it detected that a wiser eye had 
been before it. All the forms and colors, the style of the 
furniture, the frames of the mirrors and pictures, the pat- 
terns of the carpets, were harmonious, and it was a bar- 



mony as easily achieved by taste as discord by vulgarity. 
There was no painful conformity, no rigid monotony ; 
there was nothing finical nor foppish in this elegance — it 
was the necessary result of knowledge and skill. Wliile 
the house was building, he Kved with his wife at her 
father's. He personally superintended the work, which 
went briskly forward. From the foot of the Fishkill hills 
beyond the river, other eyes superintended it, also, scan- 
ning, with a telescope, the Newburgh garden and growing 
house ; and, possibly, from some rude telegraph, as a white 
cloth upon a tree, or a blot of black paint upon a smooth 
board, Hero knew whether at evening to expect her Le- 
ander. 

The house was at length finished. A graceful and 
beautiful building stood in tha garden, higher and hand- 
somer than the httle red cottage — a very pregnant symbol 
to any poet who should chance that way and hear the 
history of the architect. 

Once fairly established in his house, it became the seat 
of the most gracious hospitahty, and was a beautiful illus- 
tration of that " rural home " upon whose influence Down- 
ing counted so largely for the education and inteUigent 
patriotism of liis countrymen. His personal exertions 
were unremitting. He had been for some time projecting 
a work upon his favorite art of Landscape Gardening, and 
presently began to throw it into form. His time for liter- 
ary labor was necessarily limited by liis superintendence of 
the nursery. But the book was at length completed, and 
in the year 1841, the Author being then twenty-six years 
old, Messrs. Wiley & Putnam published in New- York and 
London, " A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of 
Landscape Gardening, adapted to North America, with a 
view to the Improvement of Country Kesidences. With 



XXIV 



Eemarks on Rural Architecture. By A. J. Downing." 
The most concise and comprehensive definition of Land- 
scape G-ardening that occurs in his works, is to be found 
in the essay, " Hints on Landscape Gardening." " It is 
an art," he says, " which selects from natural materials 
that abound in any country its best sylvan features, and 
by giving them a better opportunity than they could 
otherwise obtain, brings about a liigher beauty of de- 
velopment and a more perfect expression than nature 
herself oifers." The preface of the book is quite with- 
out pretence. " The love of country," says our author, 
with a gravity that overtops his years, "is inseparably 
connected with the love of home. Whatever, therefore, 
leads man to assemble the comforts and elegancies of 
life around his habitation, tends to increase local attach- 
ments, and render domestic life more delightful ; thus, not 
only augmenting his own enjoyment, but strengthening 
his patriotism, and making him a better citizen. And 
there is no employment or recreation which affords the 
mind greater or more permanent satisfaction than that of 
cultivating the earth and adorning our OAvn pro})erty. 
' God Almighty first planted a garden ; and, indeed, it is 
the parent of human pleasures,' says Lord Bacon. And 
as the first man was shut out from the garden, in the cul- 
tivation of which no alloy was mixed with liis happiness, 
the desire to return to it seems to be implanted by natm-e, 
more or less strongly, in every heart." 

This book passed to instant popularity, and became a 
classic, invaluable to the thousands in every part of the 
country who were waiting for the master-word which 
should tell them what to do to make their homes as beau- 
tiful as they wished. Its fine scholarship in the literature 
and history of rural art ; its singular dexterity in stating 



the great principles of taste, and their application to actual 
circumstances, with a clearness that satisfied the dullest 
mind ; its genial grace of style, illuminated by the sense 
of that beauty which it was its aim to indicate, and with a 
cheerfulness which is one of the marked characteristics of 
Downing as an author ; the easy mastery of the subject, 
and its intiinsic interest ; — all these combined to secure 
to the book the position it has always occupied. The tes- 
timony of the men most competent to speak with author- 
ity in the matter was grateful, because deserved, praise. 
Loudon, the editor of " Eepton's Landscape Gardening," 
and j)erhaps at the time the greatest living critic in the 
dei:)artment of rural art, at once declared it " a masterly 
work ;" and after quoting freely from its pages, remarked : 
" We have quoted largely from this work, because in so 
doing we think we shall give a just idea of the great merit 
of the author." Dr. Lindley, also, in his " Gardener's 
Chronicle," dissented from " some minor points," but 
said : "On the whole, we know of no work in which the 
fundamental principles of this jjrofession are so well or so 
concisely expressed : " adding, " No English landscape 
gardener has written so clearly, or with so much real in- 
tensity." 

The "quiet, thoughtful, and reserved boy" of the 
Montgomery Academy had thus suddenly displayed the 
talent which was not suspected by his school-fellows. 
The younger partner had now justified the exj3ectation he 
aroused ; and the long, silent, careful years of study and 
experience insured the permanent value of the results he 
announced. The following year saw the pubhcation of the 
" Cottage Residences," in which the principles of the first 
volume were applied in detail. For the same reason it 
achieved a success similar to the " Landscape Gardening." 



MEMOIR. 



Rural England recognized its great value. Loudon said : 
" It cannot fail to he of great service." Another said : 
■'We stretch our arm across the 'big water' to tender 
our Yankee coadjutor an English shake and a cordial re- 
cognition." These welcomes from those Avho knew what 
and why they welcomed, founded Downing's authority in 
the minds of the less learned, while the simplicity of his 
own statements confirmed it. . From the publication of 
the "Landscape Gardening" until his death, he continued 
to be the chief American authority in rural art. 

European honors soon began to seek the young gardener 
upon the Hudson. He had been for some time in corres- 
pondence with Loudon, and the other eminent men of the 
profession. He was now elected corresponding member of 
the Royal Botanic Society of London, of the Horticultural 
Societies of Berlin, the Low Countries, &c. Queen Anne 
of Denmark sent him " a magnificent ring," in acknow- 
ledgment of her pleasure in Iris works. But, as the 
years slowly passed, a sweeter praise saluted him than the 
Queen's ring, namely, the gradual improvement of the na- 
tional rural taste, and the universal testimony that it was 
due to Downing. It was found as easy to live in a hand- 
some house as in one that shocked all sense of propriety 
and beauty. The capabilities of the landscape began to 
develop themselves to the man who looked at it from his 
windows, with Downing's books in his hand. Mr. Wilder 
says that a gentleman " who is eminently qualified to form 
an enlightened judgment," declared that much of the im- 
provement that has taken place in this country during the 
last twelve years, in rural architecture and in ornamental 
gardening and planting, may be ascribed to him. Another 
gentleman, " speaking of suburban cottages in the West," 
says : "I asked the origin of so muCh taste, and was told 



it might "principally be traced to ' Downing's Cottage Resi- 
dences ' and the 'Horticulturist.'" He was naturally elect- 
ed an honorary member of most of the Horticultural Soci- 
eties in the country ; and as his interest in rural life was 
universal, embracing no less the soil and cultivation, than 
the plant, and flower, and fruit, with the residence of the 
cultivator, he received the same honor from the Agricultu- 
ral Associations. 

Meanwhile liis studies were unremitting ; and in 1845 
Wiley & Putnam pubhshed in New- York and London 
" The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America," a volume of 
six hundred pages. The duodecimo edition had only lineal 
drawings. The large octavo was illustrated with finely 
colored plates, executed in Paris, from drawings made in 
this country from the original fruits. It is a masterly 
'resum^ of the results of American experience in the his- 
tory, character, and growth of fruit, to the date of its pub- 
lication. The fourteenth edition was published in the year 
1852. 

It was in May of the year 1846 that I first saw Down- 
ing. A party was made up under the locusts to cross the 
river and pass the day at "Highland Gardens," as his place 
was named. The river at Newburgh is about a mile wide, 
and is crossed by a quiet country ferry, whence the view 
downward toward the West Point Highlands, Butter Hill, 
Sugar-Loaf, Cro' Nest, and Skunnynmnk, is as beautiful 
a river view as can be seen upon a summer day. It was a 
merry party which crossed, that bright May morning, and 
broke, with ringing laughter, the silence of the river. 
Most of us were newly escaped from the city, where we 
had been blockaded by the winter for many months, and 
tilthough often tenipted by the warm days that came in 
March, opening the windows on Broadway and ranging 



tlie blossoming plants in them, to believe that' summer 
had fairly arrived, we had uniformly found the spring to 
be that laughing lie which the poets insist it is not. 
There was no dou])t longer, however. The country was 
so brilliant with the tender green that it seemed festally 
adorned, and it was easy enough to beheve that human 
genius could have no lovelier nor loftier task than the 
development of these colors, and forms, and opportunities, 
into their greatest use and adaptation to human life. 
" God Almighty first planted a garden, and, indeed, it is 
the first of human pleasures." Lord Bacon said it long 
ago, and the bright May morning echoed it, as we crossed 
the river. 

I had read Downing's books ; and they had given me 
the impression, naturally formed of one who truly said of 
himself, " Angry volumes of politics have we written none : 
but peaceful books, humbly aiming to weave something 
more into the fair garland of the beautiful and useful that 
encircles this excellent old earth." 

His image in my mind was idyllic. I looked upon him 
as a kind of pastoral poet. I had fancied a simple, abstracted 
cultivator, gentle and silent. We left the boat and drove 
to his house. The open gate admitted us to a smooth ave- 
nue. We had gHmpses of an Arbor- Vita3 hedge, — a small 
and exquisite lawn — rare and flowering trees, and bushes 
beyond — a lustrous and odorous thicket — a gleam of the 
river below — "a feeling" of the mountains across the 
river — and were at the same moment alighting at the 
door of the elegant mansion, in which stood, what ap- 
peared to me a tall, slight Spanish gentleman, with thidc 
black hair worn very long, and dark eyes fixed upon me 
with a searching glance. He was dressed simply in a cos- 
tume fitted for the morning hospitalities of his house, or 



for the study, or the garden. His welcoming smile was 
reserved, but genuine, — his manner singularly hearty and 
quiet, marked by the easy elegance and perfect savoir 
/aire which would have adorned the Escurial. We passed 
into the library. The book-shelves were let into the wall, and 
tlie doors covered with glass. They occupied only part of 
the walls, and upon the space above each was a bracket 
with busts of Dante, Milton, Petrarch, Franklin, Linnaeus, 
and Scott. There was a large bay window opposite the 
fireplace. The forms and colors of tliis room were delight- 
ful. It was the retreat of an elegantly cultivated gentle- 
man. There were no signs of work except a writing-table, 
with pens, and portfolios, and piles of letters. 

Here we sat and conversed. Our host entered into 
every subject gayly and familiarly, with an appreciating 
deference to differences of opinion, and an evident tenacity 
of his own, all the wliile, wliicli surprised me, as the pecu- 
liarity of the most accomplished man of the world. There 
was a certain aristocratic hauteur in his manner, a constant 
sense of personal dignity, which comported with the reserve 
of liis smile and the quiet welcome. His intellectual atti- 
tude seemed to be one of curious criticism, as if he were 
sharply scrutinizing all that his affability of manner drew 
forth. No one had a readier generosity of acknowledgment, 
and there was a negative flattery in his address and atten- 
tion, which was very subtle and attractive. In all allu- 
sions to rural aftairs, and matters with which he was entirely 
familiar, his conversation was not in the slightest degree 
pedantic, nor positive. He sjjoke of such things with the 
simplicity of a child talldng of his toys. The workman, 
the author, the artist, were entirely subjugated in him to 
the gentleman. That was his favorite idea. The gentle- 
man was the fuU flower, of which all the others were sug- 



gestions and parts. The gentleman is, to the various pow- 
ers and cultivations of the man, what the tone is to the 
picture, which lies in no single color, but in the harmony 
of the whole. The gentleman is the final bloom of the 
ninn. But no man could be a gentleman without original 
nobleness of feeling and genuineness of character. Gentle- 
ness was developed from that by experience and study, as 
the dehcate tinge upon pi-ecious fruits, by propitious circum- 
stances and healthy growth. 

In this feeling, which was a constituent of liis charac- 
ter, lay the secret of the appearance of hauteur that was 
so often remarked in him, to which Miss Bremer al- 
ludes, and which all his friends perceived, more or less dis- 
tinctly. Its origin was, doubtless, twofold. It sprang 
first from his exquisite mental organization, which instinct- 
ively shrunk from whatever was coarse or crude, and which 
made his artistic taste so true and fine. That easily ex- 
tended itself to demand the finest results of men, as of 
trees, and fruits, and flowers ; and then committed the 
natural error of often accepting the appearance of this re- 
sult, Avhere the fact was wanting. Hence he had a natural 
fondness for the highest circles of society — a fondness as 
deeply founded as his love of the best possible fruits. . His 
social tendency was constantly toward those to whom great 
wealth had given opportunity of that ameliorating culture, 
— of surrounding beautiful homes with beautiful grounds, 
and filling them with refined and beautiful persons, which 
is the happy fortune of few. Hence, also, the fact that his 
introduction to Mr. Murray was a remembered event, be- 
cause the mind of the boy instantly recognized that society 
to which, by affinity, he belonged ; and hence, also, that 
admiration of the character and life of the English gentle- 
man, which was life-long with him, and which made him, 



when he went to England, naturally and directly at home 
among them. From this, also, came his extreme fondness 
for music, although he had very little ear ; and often when 
his ^vife read to him any peculiarly beautiful or touching 
passage from a book, he was quite unable to speak, so 
much was he mastered by his emotion. Besides this deli- 
cacy of organization, which makes aristocrats of all who 
have it, the sharp contrast between his childhood and his 
mature life doubtlessly nourished a kind of mental protest 
against the hard discomforts, want of sympathy, and mis- 
understandings of poverty. 

I recall but one place in which he deliberately states 
this instinct of his, as an opinion. In the paper upon 
" Improvement of Vegetable Races," April, 1852, he says : 
" We are not going to be led into a physiological digres- 
sion on the subject of the inextinguishable rights of a su- 
perior organization in certain men, and races of men, which 
Nature every day reaffirms, notwithstanding the social- 
istic and democratic theories of our politicians." But 
this statement only asserts the difference of organization. 
No man was a truer American than Downing ; no man 
more o^jposed to aU kinds of recognition of that difference 
in intellectual organization by a difference of social rank. 
That he considered to be the true democracy which as- 
serted the absolute equality of opportunity ; — and, there- 
fore, he writes from Warwick Castle, a place which in 
every way could charm no man more than him : " but I 
turned my face at last westward toward my native land, 
and with uplifted eyes thanked the good God that, though 
to England, the country of my ancestors, it had been given 
to show the growth of man in his highest development of 
class or noble, to America has been reserved' the greater 
blessing of solving for the world the true problem of aU 



humanity, — that of the ahoKtion of all castes, and the re- 
cognition of tlie divine rights of every human soul/' On 
that May morning, in the library, I remember the conver- 
sation, drifting from subject to subject, touched an essay 
upon " Manners," by Mr. Emerson, then recently pub- 
lished ; and in the few words that Mr. Downing said, lay 
the germ of what I gradually discovered to be his feeling 
upon the subject. This hauteur was always evident in his 
personal intercourse. In his dealings with workmen, with 
publishers, Avith men of affairs of all kinds, the same feel- 
ing, which they called "stifi'ness," coldness," "i^ride," 
" haughtiness," or " reserve," revealed itself That first 
morning it only heightened in my mind the Spanish im- 
pression of the dark, slim man, who so courteously wel- 
comed us at his door. 

It was May, and the magnolias were in blossom. Un- 
der our host's guidance, we strolled about liis grounds, 
which, although they comprised but some five acres, were 
laid out in a large style, that greatly enhanced their aj)par- 
ent extent. The town lay at the bottom of the hill, be- 
tween the garden and the water, and there was a road just 
at the foot of the garden. But so skilfully were the trees 
arranged, that all suspicion of town or road was removed. 
Lying upon the lawn, standing in the door, or sitting under 
the light piazza before the parlor windows, the enchanted 
\dsitor saw only the garden ending in the thicket, wliich was 
so dexterously trimmed as to reveal the lovehest glimpses of 
the river, each a picture in its frame of fohage, but wliich 
was not cut low enough to betray the presence of road or 
town. You fancied the estate extended to the river ; yes, 
and probably owned the river as an ornament, and in- 
cluded the mountains beyond. At least, you felt that 
here was a man who knew that the best part of the land- 



scape could not be owned, but belonged to every one who 
could appropriate it. The thicket seemed not only to con- 
ceal, but to annihilate, the town. So sequestered and sat- 
isfied was the guest of that garden, that he was quite care- 
less and incurious of the world beyond. I have often 
passed a week there without wishing to go outside the 
gate, and entirely forgot that there was any town near by. 
Sometimes, at sunset or twilight, we stepped into a light 
wagon, and turning up the hill, as we came out of the 
grounds, left Newburgh below, and drove along roads hang- 
ing over the river, or, passing Washington's Head Quar- 
ters, trotted leisurely along the shore. 

Witliin his house it was easy to understand that the 
home was so much the subject of liis thought. Why did 
he wish that the landscape should be lovely, and the houses 
graceful and beautiful, and the fruit fine, and the floAvers 
perfect, but because these were all dependencies and oma- 
jaents of home, and home was the sanctuary of the liigh- 
est human affection. This was the point of departure of 
his philosophy. Nature must serve man. The landscape 
must be made a picture in the gallery of love. Home was 
the pivot upon which turned all his theories of rural art. 
All his efforts, all the grasp of genius, and the cunning of 
talent, were to complete, in a perfect home, the apotheosis 
of love. It is in this fact that the permanence of his in- 
fluence is rooted. His works are not the result of elegant 
taste, and generous cidtivation, and a clear intellect, only ; 
but of a noble hope that inspired taste, cultivation, and 
intellect. Tliis saved him as an author from being wrecked 
U2)on formulas. He was strictly scientific, few men in his 
department more so ; but he was never rigidly academical. 
He always discerned the thing signified through the ex- 
pression ; and, in his own art, insisted that if there was 
3 



nothing to say, nothing should be said. He knew per- 
fectly well that there is a time for discords, and a place 
for departures from rule, and he understood them when 
they came, — which was peculiar and very lovely in a man 
of so delicate a nervous organization. This led him to be 
tolerant of all differences of opinion and action, and to be 
sensitively wary of injuring the feelings of those from whom 
he diifered. He was thus scientific in the true sense. In 
his department he was wise, and we find him writing from 
Warwick Castle again, thus : " Whoever designed this 
front, made up as it is of lofty towers and irregular walls, 
must have been a poet as well as architect, for its com- 
position and details struck me as having the proportions 
and congruity of a fine scene in nature, which we feel is 
not to be measured and defined by the ordinary rules of 
art." 

His own home was his finest work. It was materially 
beautiful, and spiritually bright with the purest lights af 
affection. Its hospitality was gracious and graceful. It 
consulted the taste, wishes, and habits of the guest, but 
with such unobtrusiveness, that the favorite flower every 
morning by the plate upon the breakfast-table, seemed to 
have come there as naturally, in the family arrangements, 
as the plate itself He held his house as the steward of 
his friends. His social genius never suffered a moment to 
drag wearily by. No man was so necessarily devoted to 
his own affairs, — no host ever seemed so devoted to his 
guests. Those guests were of the most agreeable kind, or, 
at least, they seemed so in that house. Perhaps the inter- 
preter of the House Beautiful, she who — in the poet's 
natural order — was as "moonlight unto sunlight," was 
the universal solvent. By day, there were always books, 
conversation, driving, working, lying on the lawn, excur- 



MEMOIR. XXXV 

sions into the moiuiiains across the river, visits to beau- 
tiful neighboring places, boating, botanizing, painting, — or 
whatever else could be done in the country, and done in 
the pleasantest way. At evening, there was music, — fine 
playing and singing, for the guest was thrice welcome who 
was musical, and the musical were triply musical there, — 
dancing, charades, games of every kind, — never suffered to 
flag, always delicately directed, — and in due season some 
slight violation of the Maine Law. Mr. Downing liked the 
Ohio wines, with which his friend, Mr. Longworth, kept 
him supplied, and of which he said, with his calm good 
sense, in the "Horticulturist," August, 1850, — " We do 
not mean to say that men could not Hve and breathe just 
as well if there were no such thing as wine known ; but 
that since the time of Noah men will not be contented 
with merely li\dng and breatliing ; and it is therefore 
better to pro\dde them with proper and wholesome food 
and drink, than to put improper aliments witliin their 
reach." Charades were a favorite diversion, in which sev- 
eral of his most frequent guests excelled. He was always 
ready to take part, but his reserve and self-consciousness 
interfered with his success. His social enjoyment was 
always quiet. He rarely laughed loud. He preferred 
rather to sit with a friend and watch the dance or the game 
from a corner, than to mingle in them. He wrote verses, 
but never showed them. They were chiefly rhyming let- 
ters, clever and graceful, to his wife, and her sisters, and 
some intimate friends, and to a Httle niece, of whom he 
was especially fond. One evening, after vainly endeavoring 
to persuade a friend that he was mistaken in the kind of 
a fruit, he sent him the following characteristic hues : • 



"TO THE DOCTOR, ON HIS PASSION FOE THE 'DUCHESS OF 
OLDENBURGIL' ' 

" Dear Doctor, I write you this little effusion, 
On learning you're still in that fatal delusion 
Of thinking the object you love is a Duchess, 
When 'tis only a milkmaid you hold in your clutches ; 
Why, 'tis certainly plain as the spots in the sun. 
That the creature is only a fine Dutch. Mignonne. 
She is Dutch — there is surely no question of that, — 
She's so large and so ruddy — so plump and so fat ; 
And that she's a Mignonne — a beauty — most moving, 
Is equally proved by your desperate loving ; 
But that she's a Duchess I flatly deny, 
There's such a broad twinkle about her deep eye ; 
And glance at the russety hue of her skin — 
A lady — a noble — would think it a sin ! 
Ah no, my dear Doctor, upon my own honor, 
I must send you a dose of the true Bella donna ! " 

I had expressed great delight with the magnolia, and 
carried one of the flowers in my hand during our morning 
stroll. At evening he handed me a fresh one, and every 
day while I remained, the breakfast-room was perfumed by 
the magnolia that was placed beside my plate. This deh- 
cate thoughtfulness was universal with him. He knew all 
the flowers that his friends especially loved ; and in his 
notes to me he often wrote, " the magnolias are waiting 
for you," as an irresistible allurement — which it was very 
apt to prove. Downing was in the Hbrary when I came 
down the morning after our arrival. He had the air of a 
man who has been broad awake and at work for several 
hours. There was the same quiet greeting as before — a 
gay conversation, glancing at a thousand things — and 
breakfist. After breakfast he disappeared ; but if, at 
any time, an excursion was proposed, — to climb some hill, 
to explore some meadows rich in rhododendron, to \isit 



MEMOIR. XXXVll 

\ 

some lovely lake, — he was quite ready, and went with the 
same unhurried air that marked all his actions. Like 
Sir Walter Scott, he was producing results implying close 
appHcation and labor, but without any apparent expense 
of time or means. His step was so leisurely, his manner 
so composed, there was always such total absence of wea- 
riness in all he said and did, that it was impossible to be- 
lieve he was so diligent a worker. 

But this composure, this reticence, this leisurely air, 
were all imposed upon his manner by his regal wUl. He 
was under the most supreme self-control. It was so abso- 
lute as to deprive him of spontaneity and enthusiasm. In 
social intercourse he was like two persons : the one con- 
versed with you pleasantly upon every topic, the other 
watched you from behind that pleasant talk, like a senti- 
nel. The delicate child, left much to himself by his 
parents, naturally grew waj^^vard and imperious. But the 
man of shrewd common sense, with his way to make in the 
world, saw clearly that that waywardness must be sternly 
subjugated. It was so, and at the usual expense. What 
the friend of Downing most desired in him was a frank and 
unreserved flow of feeling, which should drown out that 
curious, critical self-consciousness. He felt this want as 
much as. any one, and often playfuUy endeavored to supply 
it. It doubtless arose, in great part, from too fine a ner- 
vous organization. Under the mask of the finished man 
of the world he concealed the most feminine feelings, which 
'often expressed themselves with pathetic intensity to the 
only one in whom he unreseiTedly confided. 

This critical reserve behind the cordial manner invested 
his whole character with mystery. The long dark hair, 
the firm dark eyes, the slightly defiant brow, the Spanish 
mien, that welcomed us that May morning, seemed to 



SXXVlll 



me always afterward, the symbols of his character. A 
cloud wrapped liis mner life. Motives, and the deeper feel- 
ings, were lost to view in that obscurity. It seemed that 
within this cloud there might be desperate struggles, like 
the battle of the Huns and Romans, invisible in the air, but 
of whicli no token escaped into the experience of his friends. 
He confronted circumstances with the same composed and 
indomitable resolution, and it was not possible to tell whether 
he were entertaining angels, or wrestling with demons, in 
the secret chambers of his soul. There are passages in 
letters to his wife which indicate, and they only by impli- 
cation, that his character was tried and tempered by strug- 
gles. Those most intimate letters, however, are full of 
expressions of religious faith and dependence, sometimes 
uttered with a kind of clinging earnestness, as if he well 
knew the value of the peace that passes understanding. 
But nothing of all this appeared in liis friendly inter- 
course with men. He had, however, very few intimate 
friends among men. His warmest and most confiding 
friendships were with women. In his intercourse with 
them, he revealed a rare and beautiful sense of the uses 
of friendship, which united him very closely to theni. To 
men he was much more inaccessible. It cannot be denied 
that the feeling of mystery in his character affected the im- 
pression he made upon various persons. It might be called 
as before, " haughtiness," " reserve," " coldness," oi- 
" hardness,"* but it was quite the same thing. It re- 
pelled many who were otherwise most strongly attracted • 
to him by his books. In others, still, it begot a slight dis- 
trust, and suspicion of self-seeking upon his jjart. 

I remember a little circumstance, the impression of 
which is strictly in accordance with my feeling of this sin- 
gular mystery in his character. We had one day been 



sitting in the library, and he had told me his intention of 
building ia little study and working-room, adjoining the 
house: "but I don't know," he said, "where or how to- 
connect it with the house." But I was very well convinced 
that he would arrange it in the best possible manner, and 
was not surprised when he afterward wrote me that he had 
made a door tlii'ough the wall of the library into the new 
building. This door occupied just the space of one of the 
book-cases let into the wall, and, by retaining the double 
doors of the book-case precisely as they were, and putting 
false books beliind the glass of the doors, the appearance 
of the library was entirely unaltered, while the whole appa- 
rent book-case, doors and all, swung to and fro, at his will, 
as a private door. During my next visit at his house, I 
was sitting very late at night in the library, with a single 
candle, thinking that every one had long since retired, and 
having quite forgotten, in the perfectly familiar appearance 
of the room, that the little change had been made, when 
suddenly one of the book-cases flew out of the wall, turn- 
ing upon noiseless hinges, and, out of the perfect darkness 
behind. Downing darted into the room, while I sat staring 
Hke a benighted guest in the Castle of Otranto. The mo- 
ment, the place, and the circumstance, were entu-ely har- 
monious with my impression of the man. 

Thus, although, upon the bright May morning, I had 
crossed the river to see a man of transparent and simple 
nature, a lover and poet of rural beauty, a man who had 
travelled httle, who had made his own way into poHshed 
and cultivated social relations, as he did into every thing 
which he mastered, being altogether a self-made man — I 
found the courteous and accomplished gentleman, the quiet 
man of the world, full of tact and easy dignity, in whom it 
was easy to discover that lover and poet, though not in the 



xl MEMOIR. 

form anticipated. His exquisite regard for the details of 
life, gave a completeness to his household, which is nowhere 
surpassed. Fitness is the first element of beauty, and 
every thing in his arrangement was appropriate. It was 
hard not to sigh, when contemplating the beautiful results 
he accomplished by taste and tact, and at comparatively 
little pecuniary expense, to think of the sums elsewhere 
squandered upon an insufficient and shallow splendor. 
Yet, as beauty was, with Downing, life, and not luxury, 
although he was, in feeling and by actual profession, the 
Priest of Beauty, he was never a Sybarite, never sentimen- 
tal, never weakened by the service. In the dispositions of 
most men devoted to beauty, as artists and poets, there is 
a vein of languor, a leaning to luxury, of which no trace 
was even visible in him. His habits of life were singularly 
regular. He used no tobacco, drank little wine, and was 
no gourmand. But he was no ascetic. He loved to en- 
tertain Sybarites, poets, and the lovers of luxury : doubt- 
less from a consciousness that he had the magic of pleasing 
them more than they had ever been pleased. He enjoyed 
the pleasure of his guests. The various play of different 
characters entertained him. Yet with all liis fondness for 
fine places, he justly estimated the tendency of their in- 
fluence. He was not enthusiastic, he was not seduced 
into blindness by his own preferences, but he main- 
tained that cool and accurate estimate of things and ten- 
dencies which always made his advice invaluable. Is there 
any truer account of the syren infi.uence of a superb 
and extensive country-seat than the following from the 
paper : " A Visit to Montgomery Place." " It is not, we 
are sure, the spot for a man to plan campaigns of con- 
quest, and we doubt, even, whether the scholar whose am- 
bition it is 



MEMOIR. Xli 

< 

" to scorn delights, 
And live laborious days," 

would not find something in the air of this demesne so 
soothing as to dampen the fire of his great purposes, and 
dispose him to beheve that there is more dignity in repose, 
than merit in action." 

So, certainly, I believed, as the May days passed, and 
found me still lingering in the enchanted garden. 

In August, 1846, " The Horticulturist " was com- 
menced by Mr. Luther Tucker, of Slbaiiy; who invited 
Mr. Downing to become the editor, in which position he 
remained, wiiting a monthly leader for it, until his 
death. These articles are contained in the present vol- 
ume. Literature offers no more charming rural essays. 
They are the thoughtful talk of a country gentleman, and 
scholar, and practical workman, upon the rural aspects 
and interests of every month in the year. They insinuate 
instruction, rather than directly teach, and in a style mel- 
low, mature, and cheerful, adapted to every age and every 
mood. By their variety of tojiic and treatment, they are, 
perhaps, the most complete memorial of the man. Their 
genial simpKcity fascinated all kinds of persons. A cor- 
respondence Avhich might be called affectionate, sprang up 
between the editor and scores of his readers. They want- 
ed instruction and adidce. They confided to him their 
plans and hopes ; to him — the personally unknown " we " 
of their montlily magazine — the reserved man whom pub- 
lishers and others found " stifi"," and " cold," and " a lit- 
tle haughty," and whose fine points of character stood out, 
like sunny mountain peaks against a mist. These letters, 
it appears, were personal, and full of feehng. The 
writers wished to know the man, to see his portrait, and 
many requested him to have it published in the " Horti- 



xlii MEMOIR. 

t 

culturist." When in his neighborhood, these correspond- 
ents came to visit him. They were anxious " to see the 
man who had written books which had enabled them to 
make their houses beautifid, — which had helped their 
wives in tlie flower-garden, and had shown them how, with 
little expense, to decorate their humble parlors, and add a 
grace to the barrenness of daily life." All this was better 
than Queen Anne's " magnificent ring." 

Meanwhile, business in the nursery looked a little 
threatening. Money was always dropping from the hospi- 
table hand of the owner. Expenses increased — affairs 
became complicated. It is not the genius of men like 
Downing to manage the finances very sldlfuUy. "Every 
tree that he sold for a dollar, cost liim ten shilhngs ; " — 
which is not a money-making process. He was perhaps 
too la\dsh, too careless, too sanguine. " Had his income 
been a million a minute, he would always have been 
in debt," says one who knew liim well. The composed 
manner was as unruffled as ever ; the regal will j^reserved 
the usual appearance of things, but in the winter of 
1846-7 Mr. Downing was seriously embarrassed. It was 
a very grave juncture, for it was Hkely that he would 
be obliged to leave his house and begin life again. But 
his friends ralKed to the rescue. They assured to him 
his house and grounds ; and he, without losing time, 
without repining, and with the old determination, went to 
work more industriously than ever. His attention was 
unremitting to the " Horticulturist," and to all the projects 
he had undertaken. His interest in the management of the 
nursery, however, decreased, and he devoted himself Avith 
more energy to rural architecture and landscape gardening, 
until he gradually discontinued altogether the raising of 
trees for sale. His house was still the resort of the most 



MEMOIR. xliii 

brilliant society ; still — as it always had been, and was, until 
the end — the seat of beautifid hospitality. He was often 
enough perplexed in liis affairs — hurried by the monthly 
recurring necessity of " the leader," and not quite satisfied 
at any time until that literary task was accomplished. 
His business confined and interested him ; his large cor- 
respondence was promptly managed ; but he was still san- 
guine, under that Spanish reserve, and still spent j^rofusely. 
He had a thousand interests ; a State agricultural school, 
^ national agricultural bureau at Washington, designing pri- 
vate and public buildings, laying out large estates, pursuing 
his own scientific and literary studies, and prej^aring a work 
upon Kural Architecture. From his elegant home he was 
scattering, in the Horticulturist, pearl-seed of precious 
suggestion, which fell in all kinds of secluded and remote 
regions, and bore, and are bearing, costly fruit. 

In 1849, Mr. John Wiley pubKshed " Hints to Young 
Architects, by George Wightwck, Architect ; with Adr 
ditional Notes and Hints to Persons about Building in 
this Country, by A. J. Downing." It was a work prepar-' 
atory to the origmal one he designed to pubHsh, and full 
of most valuable suggestions. For in every tiling he was 
American. His sharp sense of propriety as the primal 
element of beauty, led him constantly to insist that the 
place, and circumstances, and time, should always be care- 
fully considered before any stejD was taken. The satin 
shoe was a grace in the parlor, but a deformity in the gar- 
den. The Parthenon was perfect in a certain climate, 
under certain conditions, and for certain purposes. But 
the Parthenon as a country mansion in the midst of 
American woods and fields was unhandsome and offensive. 
His aim in building a house was to adapt it to the site, 
and to the means and character of the owner. 



xliv MEMOIR. 

It was in the autumn of 1849 that Frederika Bre- 
mer came to America. She had been for several years 
in intimate correspondence witli Mr. Downin<^, and was 
closely attracted to him by a profound sympathy with his 
view of the dignity and influence of the home. He re- 
ceived Miss Bremer upon her arrival, and she went with 
him to his house, where she staid several weeks, and wrote 
there the introduction to the authorized American edition 
of her works. It is well for us, perhaps, that as she has 
written a work upon " The Homes of the United States,'! 
she shoidd have taken her first impression of them from 
that of Mr. Downing. During all her travels in this 
country she constantly corresponded with him and his 
wife, to whom she was very tenderly attached. Her letters 
were full of cheerful humor and shrewd observation. She 
went bravely about alone, and was treated, almost without 
exception, with consideration and courtesy. And after her 
journey was over, and she was about to return home, she 
came to say farewell where she had first greeted America, 
in Downing's garden. 

In this year he finally resolved to devote himself entirely 
to architecture and building, and, in order to benefit by the 
largest variety of experience in elegant rural life, and to se- 
cure the services of an accomj)lished and able architect, 
thoroughly trained to the business he proposed, Mr. Dovming 
went to England in the summer of 1850, having arranged 
with Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. for the 2)ubKcation of 
" The Architecture of Country Houses ; including Designs 
for Cottages, Farm-houses, and Villas." 

Already in correspondence with the leading Englishmen 
in his department, Mr. Downing was at once cordially 
welcomed. He showed the admirable, and not the un- 
friendly, qualities of his countrymen, and was directly en- 



MEMOIR. Xlv 

gaged in a series of visits to the most extensive and 
remarkable of English comitiy seats, where he was an 
honored guest. The delight of the position w^as beyond 
words to a man of his pecuhar character and habits. 
He saw on every hand the perfection of elegant rural Hfe, 
which was his ideal of life. He saw the boundless j)arks, 
the cultivated landscape, the tropics imprisoned in glass ; 
he saw sj^acious Italian villas, more Italian than in Italy ; ^ 
every various triumph of park, garden, and country- 
house. But with these, also, he met in the pleasantest 
way much fine English society, which was his ideal of 
society. There was nothing wanting to gratify his fine 
and fastidious taste ; but the j^assage already quoted from 
his letter at Warwick Castle shows how firmly his faith 
was set upon his native land, while his private letters are 
full of afiectionate longing to return. It is easy to figure 
him moving with courtly grace through the rooms of 
palaces, gentle, respectful, low in tone, never exaggerating, 
welcome to lord and lady for his good sense, his practical 
knowledge, his exact detail ; pleasing the English man and 
woman by his Enghsh sympathies, and interesting them by 
his manly and genuine, not boasting, assertions of Ameri- 
can genius and success. Looking at the picture, one re- 
members again that earlier one of the boy coming home 
from Montgomery Academy, in Orange County, and intro- 
duced at the wealthy neighbor's to the Enghsh gentleman. 
The instinct that remembered so slight an event secured 
his appreciation of all that England offered. No Ai^isri- 
can ever visited England with a mind more in tune ^vith 
aU that is nobly characteristic of her. He remarked, upon 
his return, that he had been much impressed by the quiet, 
religious life and habits wliich he found in many great 
Enghsh houses. It is not a point of English life often 



Xlvi MEMOIR. 

noticed, nor presupposed, but it was doubly grateful to 
liim, because he was always a Christian believer, and be- 
cause all parade was repugnant to him. His letters before 
his marriage, and during the last years of his life, evince 
the most genuine Christian faith and feehng. 

His residence in England was very brief — a summer 
trip. He crossed to Paris and saw French life. For- 
tunately, as his time was short, he saw more in a day 
than most men in a month, because he was prepared 
to see, and knew wliere to look. He found the assistant 
he wished in Mr. Calvert Vaux, a young English ar- 
cliitect, to whom he was introduced by the Secretary 
of the Architectural Association, and with whom, so 
mutual was the satisfaction, he directly concluded an 
agreement. Mr. Vaux sailed with liim from Liverpool 
in September, presently became his partner in business, 
and commanded, to the end, Mr. Downing's unreserved 
confidence and respect. 

I remember a Christmas visit to Downing in 1850, after 
his return from Europe, when we all danced to a fiddle upon 
the marble pavement of the hall, by the fight of rustic 
chandeliers wreathed with Christmas green, and under the 
antlers, and pikes, and helmets, and breastplates, and 
plumed hats of cavaliers, that hung upon the walls. The 
very genius of Engfish Christmas ruled the revel. 

During these years he was engaged in superintending 
the various new editions of his works, and looking forward 
to larger achievements with maturer years. He designed 
a greatly enlarged edition of the " Frmt-Trees," and 
spoke occasionally of the " Shade-Trees," as a work Avhich 
would be of the greatest practical value. He was much 
interested in the estabfishment of the Pomological Con- 
gress, was chairman of its fruit committee from the begin- 



MEMOIR. xlvii 

ning, and drew up the " Rules of American Pomology." 
Every moment had its work. There was not a more use- 
fbl man in America ; but liis visitor found still the same 
quiet host, leisurely, disengaged ; picking his favorite 
flowers before breakfast ; driving here and there, writing, 
studying, as if rather for amusement ; and at twihght 
stepping into the wagon for a loitering drive along the 
river. 

His love of the country and faith in rural influences 
were too genuine for him not to be deeply interested in the 
improvement of cities by means of j)ubHc parks and gar- 
dens. Not only for their sanitary use, but' for their ele- 
gance and refining influence, he was anxious that all our 
cities should be richly endowed with them. He alluded 
frequently to the subject in the columns of his magazine, 
and when it was resolved by Congress to turn the pubHc 
grounds in Washington, near the Capitol, White House, 
and Smithsonian Institute, into a public garden and pro- 
menade, Downing was naturally the man invited by the 
President, in April, 1851, to design the arrangement of the 
grounds and to superintend their execution. All the de- 
signs and much of the work Avere completed before his 
death. This new labor, added to the rest, while it in- 
creased his income, consumed much of his time. He went 
once every month to Washington, and was absent ten or 
twelve days. 

He was not suffered to be at peace in this position. 
There were plenty of jealousies and rivalries, and much 
sharp questioning about the $2500 annually paid to an 
accomplished artist for lapng out the public grounds of 
the American Capital, in a manner worthy the nation, and 
for reclaiming many acres from waste and the breeding of 
miasma. At length the matter was discussed in Congress. 



xlviii MEMOIR. 

On the 24th March, 1852, during a debate upon various 
appropriations, Mr. Jones, of Tennessee, moved to strike 
out the sum of |1 2,000, proposed to complete the im- 
provements around the President's house ; complained that 
there were great ahuses under the proviso of this appro- 
priation, and declared, quite directly, that Mr. Downing 
was overpaid for his services. Mr. Stanton, of Kentucky, 
replied : — " It is astonishing to my mind — and I have no 
doubt to the minds of others — with what facility other- 
wise intelligent and resjiectable gentlemen on this floor 
can deal out wholesale denunciations of men about whom 
they know nothing, and will not inform themselves ; and 
how much the legislation of the country is controlled by 
prejudices thus invoked and clamor thus raised." After 
speaking of the bill under which the improvements were 
making, he continued : " The President was authorized to 
appoint some competent person to superintend the carrying 
out of the plan adopted. He appointed Mr. Downing. And 
who is he ? One of the most accomplished gentlemen in his 
profession in the Union ; a man known to the world as pos- 
sessing rare sldll as a ' rural architect ' and landscape garden- 
er, as well as a man of great scientific intelligence. ••■' * * * 
I deny that he has neglected his duties, as the gentleman 
from Tennessee has charged. Instead of being here only 
three days in the month, he has been here vigilantly dis- 
charging Ills duties at all times when those duties required 
him to be here. He has suj)erintended, directed, and 
carried out the plan adopted, as fully as the funds appro- 
priated have enabled him to do. If all the officers of the 
Government had been as conscientious and scrupulous in 
the discharge of their duties as he has been since his 
appointment, there would be no ground for reproaches 
against those who have control of the Government." 



MEMOIR. xlix 

Mr. Downing was annoyed by this continual carping and 
bickering, and anxious to have the matter definitely ar- 
ranged, he requested the President to summon the Cabinet. 
The Secretaries assembled, and Mr. Downing was presented. 
He explained the case as he understood it, unrolled his 
plans, stated his duties, and the time he devoted to 
them, and the salary he received. He then added, that 
he wished the arrangement to be clearly understood. 
If the President and Cabinet thought that his require- 
ments were extravagant, he was perfectly willing to roll up 
his plans, and return home. If they approved them, he 
would gladly remain, but upon the express condition that 
he was to be relieved from the annoyances of the quarrel. 
The President and Cabinet agreed that his plans were the 
best, and liis demands reasonable ; and the work went on 
in peace from that time. 

The year 1852 opened upon Downing, in the gar- 
den where he had played and dreamed alone, while the 
father tended the trees ; and to which he had clung, with 
indefeasible instinct, when the busy mother had suggested 
that her delicate boy would thrive better as a drygoods 
clerk. He was just past his thirty-sixth birth-day, and 
the FishldU mountains, that had watched the boy depart- 
ing for the academy where he was to show no sign of 
his power, now beheld him, in the bloom of manhood, 
honored at home and abroad — no man, in fact, more 
honored at home than he. Yet the honor sprang from 
the work that had been achieved in that garden. It 
was there he had thought, and studied, and observed. 
It was to that home he returned from his little excur- 
sions, to ponder upon the new things he had seen and 
heard, to try them by the immutable principles of taste, 
and to test them by rigorous proofs. It was from that 
4 



1 MEMOIR. 

home that he looked upon the landscape which, as it 
allured his youth, now satisfied his manhood. The moun- 
tains, upon whose shoreward slope liis wife was horn under 
the blossoming locusts on the very day on which he was 
born in the Newburgh garden, smiled upon his success and 
shared it. He owed them a debt he never disavowed. 
Below his house flowed the river of which he so proudly 
wrote in the preface to the "Fruit-Trees" — "A man born 
on the banks of one of the noblest and most fruitful rivers 
in America, and whose best days have been spent in gardens 
and orchards, may perhaps be pardoned for talking about 
fruit-trees." Over the gleaming bay which the river's ex- 
pansion at Newburgh forms, glided the dazzling summer 
days ; or the black thunder-gusts swept suddenly out 
from the bold liighlands of West Point ; or the winter 
landscape lay calm around the garden. From his windows 
he saw all the changing glory of the year. New- York was 
of easy access by the steamers that constantly passed to 
and from Albany and the river towns, and the railroad 
brought the city within three hours of his door. It 
brought constant visitors also, from the city and beyond ; 
and scattered up and down the banks of the Hudson were 
the beautiful homes of friends, with whom he was con- 
stantly in the exchange of the most unrestrained hospi- 
tality. He added to his house the working-room commu- 
nicating with the library by the mysterious door, and was 
deeply engaged in the planning and building of country- 
houses in every direction. Among these I may mention, as 
among the last and finest, the summer residence of Daniel 
Parish, Esq., at Newport, R. I. Mr. Downing knew that 
Newport was the great social exchange of the country, that 
men of wealth and taste yearly assembled there, and that 
a fine house of liis desitrnincr erected there would be of the 



MEMOIR. li 

greatest service to his art. Tkis house is at once simple, 
massive, and graceful, as becomes the spot. It is the Avork 
of an artist, in the finest sense, harmonious with the bare 
cliff and the sea. But even where his personal services 
were not required, his books were educating taste, and his 
influence was visible in hundreds of houses that he had 
never seen. He edited, during tliis year, Mrs. Loudon's 
Gardening for Ladies, which was published by Mr. John 
Wiley. No man was a more practically useful friend to 
thousands who did not know liim. Yet if, at any time, 
while his house was full of visitors, business summoned 
him, as it frequently did, he sKpj^ed quietly out of the 
gate, left the visitors to a care as thoughtful and beau- 
tiful as liis own, and his house was made their home 
tor the time they chose to remain. Downing was in 
his thirty-seventh year, in the fulness of his fame and 
power. The difficulties of the failure were gradually dis- 
appearing behind him like clouds rolling away. He stood 
in his golden prime, as in his summer garden ; the Fu- 
ture smiled upon him Hke the blue Fishkill hills beyond 
the river. That Future, also, lay beyond the river. 

At the end of June, 1852, I went to pass a few days 
with him. He held an annual feast of roses with as many 
friends as he could gather and his house could hold. The 
days of my visit had all the fresh sweetness of early sum- 
mer, and the garden and the landscape were fuller than 
ever of grace and beauty. It was an Arcadian chapter, 
with the roses and blossoming figs upon the green-house 
wall, and the music by moonhght, and reading of songs, 
and tales, and games upon the lawn, under the Warwick 
vase. Boccaccio's groups in their Fiesole garden, were not 
gayer ; nor the bUthe circle of a summer's -day upon Sir 
Walter Vivian's lawn. Indeed it was precisely in Down- 



Hi MEMOIR. 

ing's garden that the poetry of such old traditions became 
fact — or rather the fact was lifted into that old poetry. 
He had achieved in it the beauty of an extreme civiliza- 
tion, without losing the natural, healthy vigor of his coun- 
try and time. 

One evenino; — the moon was full — we crossed in a row- 
boat to the Fishkill shore, and floated upon the gleaming 
river under the black banks of foliage to a quaint old coun- 
try-house, in whose small library the Society of the Cin- 
cinnati was formed, at the close of the Revolution, and in 
whose rooms a pleasant party was gathered that summer 
evening. The doors and windows were open. We stood 
in the rooms or loitered upon the piazza, looking into the 
unspeakable beauty of the night. A lady was pointed out 
to me as the heroine of a romantic history — a handsome 
woman, with the traces of hard experience in her face, 
standing in that little peaceful spot of summer moonlight, 
as a child snatching a brief dream of jjeace between 
spasms of mortal agony. As we returned at midnight 
across the river. Downing told us more of the stranger 
lady, and of his early feats of swimming from Newburgh 
to Fishldll ; and so we drifted homeward upon the oily 
calm with talk, and song, and silence — a brief, beautiful 
voyage upon the water, where the same summer, while yet 
unladed, should see liim embarked upon a longer journey. 
In these last days he was the same generous, thoughtful, 
quiet, effective person I had always found him. Friends 
peculiarly dear to him were in his house. The Washing- 
ton work was advancing finely : he was much interested in 
his Newport plans, and we looked forward to a gay meet- 
ing there in the later smnmer. The time for his monthly 
trip to Washington arrived while I was still his guest. 
" We shall meet in Newport," I said. " Yes," he an- 



MEMOIR. liii 

swered, " but you must stay and keep house with my 
wife until I return." 

I was gone before he reached home again, but, with 
many wlio wished to consult him about houses they were 
building, and with many whom he honored and wished to 
know, awaited his promised visit at Newport. 

Mr. Downing had intended to leave Newburgh with his 
wife upon Tuesday, the 27th of July, when they would 
have taken one of the large river steamers for New- York. 
But his business prevented his leaving upon that day, and it 
was postponed to Wednesday, the 28th of July, on which 
day only the two smaller boats, the " Henry Clay " and 
the " Armenia" were running. Upon reaching the wharf, 
Mr. and Mrs. Downing met her mother, Mrs. De Wint, 
with her youngest son and daughter, and the lady who had 
been pointed out as the heroine of a tragedy. But this 
morning she was as sunny as the day, which was one of 
the loveliest of summer. 

The two steamers were already in sight, coming down 
the river, and there was a little discussion in the party as 
to which they would take. But the " Henry Clay " was 
the largest and reached the wharf first. Mr. Downing 
and his party embarked, and soon perceived that the two 
boats were desperately racing. The circumstance was, 
however, too common to excite any apprehension in the 
minds of the party, or even to occasion remark. They sat 
upon the deck enjoying the graceful shores that fled by 
them — a picture on the air. Mr. Downing was engaged 
in lively talk with his companion, who had never been to 
Newport and was very curious to see and share its brilliant 
life. They had dined, and the boat was within twenty 
miles of New- York, in a broad reach of the river between 
the Palisades and the town of Yonkers, when Mrs. Down- 



liv MEMOIR. 

ing observed a slight smoke blowing toward them from the 
centre of the boat. She spoke of it, rose, and said they 
had better go into the cabin. Her husband replied, no, 
that they were as safe where they then were as any where. 
Mrs. Downing, however, went into the cabin where her 
mother was sitting, knitting, with her daughter by her 
side. There was little time to say any thing. The smoke 
rapidly increased ; all who could reach it hurried into the 
cabin. The thickening smoke poured in after the crowd, 
who were nearly suffocated. 

The dense mass choked the door, and Mr. Down- 
ing's party instinctively rushed to the cabin windows to 
escape. They chmbed through them to the narrow pas- 
sage between the cabin and the bulwarks of the boat, 
the crowd pressing heavily, shouting, crying, despairing, 
and suffocating in the smoke that now fell upon them 
in black clouds. Suddenly Mr. Downing said, " They are 
running her ashore, and we shall all be taken off." He 
led them round to the stern of the boat, thinking to escape 
more readily from the other side, but there saw a person 
upon the shore waving them back, so they returned to 
their former place. The flames began now to crackle and 
roar as they crept along the woodwork from the boiler, and 
the pressure of the throng toward the stern was frightful. 
Mr. Downing was seen by his wife to step upon the railing, 
with his coat tightly buttoned, read)'' for a spring upon the 
upper deck. At that moment she was borne away by the 
crowd and saw him no more. Their friend, who had been 
conyersing with Mr. Downing, was calm but pale with 
alarm. " What will become of us ? " said one of these 
women, in this frightful extremity of peril, as they held 
each other's hands and were removed from all human help. 
" May God have mercy upon us," answered the other. 



MEMOIE. Iv 

Ux^on the instant they were separated by the swaying 
crowd, hut Mrs. Downing still kept near her mother, and 
sister, and brother. The flames were now within three 
yards of them, and her brother said, " We must get over- 
board." Yet she still held some books and a parasol in 
her hand, not yet able to believe that this was Death creep- 
ing along the deck. She turned and looked for her hus- 
band. She could not see him and called his name. Her 
voice was lost in that wild whiii and chaos of frenzied de- 
spair, and her brother again said to her, " You must get 
overboard." In that moment the daughter looked upon 
the mother — the mother, who had said to her daughter's 
husband when he asked her hand, " She has been the comfort 
of her mother's heart, and the solace of her hours," and 
she saw that her mother's face was " full of the terrible re- 
ality and inevitable necessity " that awaited them. The 
crowd choked them, the flames darted toward them ; the 
brother helped them upon the railing and they leaped into 
the water. 

Mrs. Downing stretched out her hands, and grasped 
two chairs that floated near her, and lying quietly upon 
her back, was buoyed up by the chairs ; then seizing an- 
other that was passing her, and holding two in one hand 
and one in the other, she floated away from the smoking 
and blazing wreck, from the shrieking and drowning crowd, 
past the stern of the boat that lay head in to the shore, 
past the blackened fragments, away from the roaring death 
struggle into the calm water of the river, calling upon God 
to save her. She could see the burning boat below her, 
three hundred yards, perhaps, but the tide was coming in, 
and after floating some little distance up the river, a current 
turned her directly toward the shore. Where the water 
was yet too deep for her to stand, she was grasped by a 



Ivi MEMOIR. 

man, drawn toward the Lank, and there, finding that she 
could stand, she was led out of the water by two men. 
With the rest of the bewildered, horror-stunned people, 
she walked up and down the margin of the river looking 
for her husband. Her brother and sister met her as she 
walked here — a meeting more sad than joyful. Still the 
husband did not come, nor the mother, nor that friend 
who had implored the mercy of God. Mrs. Downing was 
sure that her husband was safe. He had come ashore 
above — he was still floating somewhere — ^he had been pick- 
ed up — he had swam out to some sloop in the river — he 
was busy rescuing the drowning — he was doing his duty 
somewhere — he could not be lost. 

She was persuaded into a little house, where she sat at 
a window until nightfall, watching the wreck and the con- 
fusion. Then she was taken home upon the railroad. The 
neighbors and friends came to her to pass the night. They 
sat partly in the house and partly stood watching at the 
door and upon the piazza, waiting for news from the mes- 
sengers who came constantly from the wreck. Mr. Vaux 
and others left directly for the wreck, and remained there 
until the end. The wife clung to her hope, but lay very 
ill, in the care of the physician. The day dawned over 
that blighted garden, and in the afternoon they told her 
that the body of her husband had been found, and they 
were bringing it home. A young woman who had been 
saved from the wreck and sat trembHng in the house, then 
said what until then it had been impossible for her to say, 
that, at the last moment, Mr. Downing had told her how 
to sustain herself in the water, but that before she was 
compelled to leap, she saw him struggling in the river 
with his friend and others clinging to him. Then she 
heard him utter a prayer to God, and saw him no more. 



MEMOIR. ]V11 

Another had seen him uj)on the upper deck, probably 
just after his wife lost sight of him, throwing chairs into 
the river to serve as suj^ports ; nor is it too improbable 
that the chairs upon wliich liis wife floated to shore were 
among those he had so thoughtfully provided. 

In the afternoon, they brought liim home, and laid him 
in his hbrary. A terrific storm burst over the river and 
crashed among the hills, and the wild sympathy of nature 
surrounded that blasted home. But its master lay serene 
in the peace of the last ]3rayer he uttered. Loving hands 
had woven garlands of the fragrant blossoms of the Cape 
jessamine, the sweet clematis, and the royal roses he loved 
so well. The next morning was calm and bright, and he 
was laid in the graveyard, where his father and mother 
lie. The quiet Fishkill mountains, that won the love of the 
shy boy in the garden, now watch the grave of the man, 
who was buried, not yet thirty-seven years old, but with 
great duties done in this world, and with firm faith in the 
divine goodness. 

" Unwatch'd, the garden bougli shall sway, 
The tender blossom flutter down, 
Unloved, that beech will gather brown, 
This maple burn itself aAvay ; 

" Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair 
Eay round with flame her disk of seed, 
And many a rose-carnation feed 
With summer spice the humming air. 

" Unloved, by many a sandy bar 

The brook shall babble down the plain, 
At noon, or when the lesser wain 
Is twisting round the polar star ; 

" Uncared for, gird the windy grove. 

And flood the haunts of hern and crake ; 



Iviii 



Or into silver arrows break, 
The sailing moon in creek and cove ; 

" Till from the garden and the wild, 
A fresh association blow, . 
And year by year, the landscape grow 
Familiar to the stranger''s child ; 

" As, year by year, the laborer tills 

His wonted glebe, or lops the glades ; 
And year by year our memory fades 
From all the circle of the hills." 




A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER. 



TO THE FRIENDS OF A. J. DOWNING, 



\ Stockholm, November, 1852. 

HEKE, before me, are tlie pages on which a noble and 
refined spirit has breathed his mind. He is gone, he 
breathes no more on earth to adorn and ennoble it ; but 
in these pages his mind still speaks to us — his eye, his 
discerning spirit still guides and directs us. Thank God, 
there is immortality even on earth ! Thank God, the work 
of the good, the word of the noble and intelligent, has in 
it seeds of eternal growth ! 

Friends of my friend, let us rejoice, while we weep, 
that we still have so much of him left, so much of him 
with us, to learn by, to beautify our homes, our loves, our 
lives ! 

Let us be thankful that we can turn to these j)ages, 
which bear his words and works, and again there enjoy his 
conversation — the peculiar glances of his mind and eye at 
the objects of life ; let us thank the Giver of all good things 
for the gift of such a mind as his to this imperfect world ; 
for he understood and knew the perfect, and worked for 
perfection wherever his word or work could reach. But 
not as that personage ascribed to Shakspeare, to whom it 
is said : " You seem to me somewhat surly and critical," 



Ixii A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER. 

and who answers, "It is that I have early seen the perfect 
beauty." 

Our friend had — even he — early seen the perfect beau- 
ty, but he was not surly when he saw what was not so. 
His criticism, unflinching as was his eye, looked upon 
things imperfect or mistaken with a quiet rebuke, more of 
commiseration than of scorn. A smile of gentle, good- 
humored sarcasm, or a simple, earnest statement of the 
truth, were his modes of condemnation, and the beauty of 
the Ideal and his faith in its power would, as a heavenly 
light, pierce through his frown. So the real diamond will, 
by a ray of supeiior power, criticize the false one, and 
make it darken and shrink into notliingness. 

Oh ! let me speak of my friend to you, liis friends, 
though you saw him more and knew him for a longer time 
than I, the stranger, who came to his home and went, as a 
passing bird. Let me speak of liim to you, for, though 
you saw him more and knew him longer, I loved him bet- 
ter than aU, save one — the sweet wife who made aU his 
days days of peace and pleasantness. And the eye of love 
is clairvoyant. Let me plead also with you my right as a 
stranger; for the stranger comes to a new world with fresh 
eyes, as those accustomed to snowy chmates would be more 
alive to the peculiar beauty of tropical life, than those who 
see it every day. And it was so that, when I saw him, 
our departed friend, I became aware of a kind of individual 
beauty and finish, that I had little anticipated to find in 
the New World, and indeed, had never seen before, any 
where. 

At war with the elegant refinements and beauties of 
life, to which I was secretly bound by strong sympatliies, 
but which I looked upon as Samson should have looked upon 
Delilah, and in love with the ascetic severities of life, with 



A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER. Ixiii 

St. John and St. Theresa, — I used to have a Httle pride 
in my disdain of tilings that the greater part of the world 
look upon as most desirable. Still, I could not but believe 
that tilings beautiful and refined — yea, even the luxuries 
of life, had a right to citizenship in the kingdom of God. 
And I had said to myself, as the young Quakeress said to 
her mother, when reproached by her for seeking more the 
gayeties of this world than the tilings made of God ; 

" He made the flowers and the raiubow." 

But again, the saints and the Puritans after them, had 
said, " Beauty is Temptation," and so it has been at all 
times. 

When I came to the New World, I was met on the 
shore by A. J. Downing, who had invited me to his house. 
By some of his books that I had seen, as well as by his let- 
ters, I knew him to be a man of a refined and noble mind. 
When- 1 saw him, I was struck, as we are by a natural ob- 
ject of uncommon cast or beauty. He took me gently by 
the hand, and led me to his home. That he became to me 
as a brother, — that his discerning eye and mind guided my 
imtutored spirit with a careless grace, but not the less im- 
pressively, to look upon things and persons most influential 
and leading in the formation of the life and mind of the 
people of the United States, was much to me ; that he 
became to me a charming friend, whose care and attention 
followed me every where during my pilgrimage, — that he 
made a new summer life, rich with the charm of America's 
Indian summer, come in my heart, though the affection 
w\.i\\ which he inspired me, was much to me ; yet what was 
still more, was, that in him I learned to understand a new 
nature, and through him, to appreciate a new realm of 
Ufe. 



Ixiv 



A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER. 



You will understand this easily from what I have just 
stated, and when you think of him, and look on these pages 
where he has written down his individual mind ; for if 
ever writer incarnated his very nature in his work, truly 
and entirely, it was done by A. J. Downing. And if his 
words and works have won authority all over the United 
States, wherever the mind of the people has risen to the 
sphere of intelligence and beauty ; if under the snowy roofs 
of Concord in the Pilgrim State, as under the orange and 
oak groves of South Carolina, I heard the same words — 
" Mr. Downing has done much for this countiy ;" if even 
in other countries I hear the same appreciation of his 
works, and not a single contradiction ; it is that his peculiar 
nature and talent were so one and whole, so in one gush 
out of the hand of the Creator, that he won authority and 
faith by the force of those primeval laws to which we 
bow by a divine necessity as we recognize in them the mark 
of divine truth. 

God had given to our friend to understand the true 
beauty ; Christianity had elevated the moral standard of 
his mind ; the spirit of the New World had breathed on him 
its enlarging influence ; and so he became a judge of beau- 
ty in a new sense. The beauty that he saw, that inspired 
him, was no more the Venus Anadyomene of the heathen 
world still living on through all ages, even in the Christian 
one, mingling the false with the true and carrying abomi- 
nations under her golden mantle. It was the Venus Ura- 
nia, radiant with the pure glory of the Virgin, mother of 
divinity on earth. The beauty that inspired him was in 
accordance with all that was true and good, nor would he 
ever see the first severed from the two others. It was the 
beauty at home in the Kingdom of God. 

In Mr. Downing's home on the Hudson I was impressed 



A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER. Ixv 

with the chastity in forms and colors, as well as vdth the 
perfect grace and nobleness even in the slightest things. A 
soul, a pure and elevated soul, seemed to have breathed 
through them, and modelled them to expressions of its in- 
nermost life and taste. How earnest was the home-spirit 
breathing throughout the house and in every thing there, 
and yet how cheerful, how calm, and yet how full of life ; 
how silent and yet how suggestive, how full of noble 
teaching ! 

When I saw the master of the house in the quiet of 
his home, in every day life, I ceased to think of his art, 
but I began to admire his nature. And his slight words, 
his smile, even his silence, became to me as revelations of 
new truths. You must see it also, you must recognize it 
in these pages, through which he still speaks to us ; you 
must recognize in them a special gift, a power of inspired, 
not acquired, kind ; what is acquired, others may acquire 
also, but what is given by the grace of God is the exclu- 
sive property of the favored one. 

When I saw how my friend worked, I saw how it was 
with him. For he worked not as the workman does ; he 
worked as the lilies in the field, which neither toil nor spin, 
but unconsciously, smilingly, work out their glorious robes 
and breathe forth their perfumes. 

To me it is a labor to write a letter, especially on busi- 
ness ; he discharged every day, ten or twelve letters, as 
easily as the wind carries flower-seeds on its wings over the 
land. 

He never spoke of business — of having much to do ; 
he never seemed to have much to do. With a careless 
ease and grace, belonging naturally to him, he did many 
things as if they were nothing, and had plenty of leisure 
and pleasantness for his friends. He seemed quietly and 



Ixvd A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER. 

joyfully, without .any effort, to breathe forth the life and 
light given him. It was his nature. In a flower-pot ar- 
ranged by his hand, there was a silent lecture on true taste, 
applicable to all objects and arrangements in life. His 
shght and delicately formed hand, " la main ame," as Vi- 
comte d'Agincourt would have named it, could not touch 
things to arrange them without giving them a soul of 
beauty. 

Though commonly silent and retired, there was in his 
very presence something that made you feel a secret influ- 
ence, a secret speaking, in appreciation or in criticism — 
that made you feel that the Judge was there ; yea, though 
kind and benevolent, still the Judge, severe to the thing, 
the expression, though indulgent to the individual. Often 
when travelling with him on his beloved Hudson, and in 
deep silence sitting by his side, a glance of his eye, a smile, 
half melancholy, half arch, would direct my looks to some 
curious things passing, or some words would break the si- 
lence, slightly spoken, without accent, yet with meaning 
and power enough never to be forgotten. His appre- 
ciation of things always touched the characteristic points. 
He could not help it, it was his nature. 

And so, while I became impressed with that nature, as 
a peculiar finished work of God, and the true spirit and 
aim of the refinements and graces of civilized life became 
through him more clear to me, I felt a very great joy to 
see that the New World — the world of my hopes — had in 
him a leading mind, through which its realm of beauty 
might rise out of the old heathenish chaos and ghttering 
falsities, to the pure region where beauty is connected with 
what is chaste, and noble, and dignified in every form and 
application. 

A new conception of beauty and refinement, in all 



A LETTEll FROM MISS BREMER. Ixvii 

realms of life, belongs to the New World, the new home of 
the people of peoples, and it was given through A. J. 
Downing. 

I am not sure of being right in my observation, but it 
seemed to me that in the course of no long time, the mind 
of my friend had undergone a change in some views that to 
me seem of importance. When I knew him at first he 
seemed to me a little too exclusive, a little aristocratic, as 
I even told him, and used to taunt him with, half in earn- 
est, half in play — and we had about that theme some skir- 
misliings, just good to stir up a fresh breeze over the smooth 
waters of daily life and intercourse. I thought that he 
still wanted a baptizing of a more Christian, republican 
spirit. Later I thought the baptizing had come, gentle 
and pure as heavenly dew. 

And before my leaving America I enjoyed to see the 
soul of my friend rise, expand, and become more and more 
enlarged and universal. It could not be otherwise, a soul 
so gifted must scatter its divine gifts as the sun its rays, 
and the flower its seeds, over the whole land, for the whole 
people, for one and for all. The good and gifted man would 
not else be a true repubHcan. It was with heartfelt deHght 
that I, on my last visit to the home of my friend, did read 
in the August number of the Horticulturist these words 
in- a leading article by him, on the New- York Park. 

" Social doubters, who intrench themselves in the cit- 
adel of exclusiveness in republican America, mistake our 
people and its destiny. If we would but have listened to 
them, our magnificent river and lake steamers, those real 
palaces of the million, would have no velvet couches, no 
splendid mirrors, no luxurious carpets ; such costly and 
rare appliances of civiHzation, they would have told us, 
could only be rightly used by the privileged families of 



Ixviii A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER. 

wealth, and would be trampled upon and utterly ruined 
by the democracy of the country, who travel one hundred 
miles for half a dollar. And yet these our floating palaces, 
and our monster hotels, with their purple and fine linen, 
are they not respected by the majority who use them as 
truly as other palaces by their rightful sovereigns ? Alas^ 
for the faithlessness of the few who possess, regarding the 
capacity for culture of the many who are wanting. 

" Even upon the lower platform of liberty and education 
that the masses stand in Europe, we see the elevating influ- 
ences of a wide popular enjoyment of galleries of art, pub- 
lic libraries, parks and gardens, which have raised the peo- 
ple in social civilization and social culture, to a far higher 
level than we have yet attained in republican America. 
And yet this broad ground of jiopular refinement must be 
taken in republican America, for it belongs of right more 
truly here than elsewhere. It is republican in its very idea 
and tendency. It takes up pojjular education where the 
common school and baUot-box leave it, and raises up the 
working man to the same level of enjoyment with the man 
of leisure and accomplishment. The higher social and 
artistic elements of every man's "nature lie dormant within 
him, and every laborer is a possible gentleman ; not by the 
possession of money or fine clothes, but through the refin- 
ing influence of intelligent and moral culture. Open wide 
therefore the doors of your libraries and picture-galleries, 
all ye true republicans ! Build halls where knowledge shall 
be freely diffused among men, and not shut up within the 
narrow walls of narrower institutions. Plant spacious parks 
in your cities, and unloose their gates as wide as the gates 
of the morning, to the whole peoi3le. As there are no dark 
places at noonday, so education and culture — the true sun- 
shine of the soul — will banish the plague-spots of democ- 



A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER. Ixix 

racy ; and the dread of the ignorant exclusive who has 
no fliith in the refinement of a republic, will stand abashed 
in the next century, before a whole peoi^le whose system of 
voluntary education embraces (combined with perfect indi- 
vidual freedom) not only common schools and rudimentary 
knowledge, but common enjoyments for all classes in the 
higher realms of art, letters, science, social recreations and 
enjoyments. Were our legislators wise enough to under- 
stand to-day the destinies of the New World, the gentility 
of Sir Philip Sidney made universal, would be not half so 
much a miracle fifty years hence in America, as the idea 
of a whole nation of laboring men reading and writing was, 
in his day, in England." 

In one of my latest conversations with my friend, as 
he followed md down to the sea-shore, he spoke with great 
satisfaction of Miss Cooper's work, " Kural Hours," just 
published, and expressed again a hope I had heard him 
express more than once, that the taste for rural science 
and occupations would more and more be cultivated by 
the women of America. It was indeed a thing for which 
I felt most grateful, and that marked my friend as a true 
American man, namely, the interest he took in the eleva- 
tion of woman's culture and social influence. 

His was a mind alive to every thing good and beautiful 
and true, in every department of life, and he would fain 
have made them all, and every species of excellence, adorn 
his native country. 

Blessed be his words and works, on the soil of the New 
World. As he was to his stranger friend, so may he be to 
millions yet to come in his land, a giver of Hesperian fruits, 
a sure guide thi'ough the wilderness ! 



IXX A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER. 

When I was in Cuba, I remember being strongly 
impressed with a beauty of nature and existence, of 
wliich I liitherto had formed no idea, and that enlarged 
my conceptions of the realms of nature as well as of art. 
I remember writing of it to Mr. Downing, saying (if not 
exactly in the same words, at least to the same pur- 
port) : 

" You must come here, my brother, you must see these 
trees and flowers, these curves and colors, and take into 
your soul the image of this earthly paradise, while you are 
still on earth ; and then, when God shall call you to that 
other world, to be there a gardener of His own, and you 
will have a star of your own to plant and perfect — as of 
course you will have — then you will mingle the palms and 
bamboo groves of Cuba with your own American oaks and 
elms, and taking models out of the beautiful objects of all 
nature and all climates, you will build houses and temples 
of which even ' The Seven Lamps of Architecture ' give 
but distant ideas. You will build a cathedral, where 
every plant and every creature will be as a link rising 
upwards, joining in one harmonious Apocalypse revealing 
the glory of the Creator," 

And now, when the call has come, and my friend is 
taken away, and much of the charm of tins world is taken 
from me ■with him, I solace my fancy with the vision I thus 
anticipated. I see my friend working in some more perfect 
world, out of more perfect matter, the ideas of beauty and 
perfection which were life of his life, so to make it a fit 
abode for pure and heavenly spirits. 

Why should it not be so ? I think it must be so, as 
God's gifts are of immortal cost as well as the individual 
spirit to whom they were given. Is not all that is beauti- 
ful in nature, true and charming in art, based upon laws 



A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER. Ixxi 

and affinities as eternal as the Spirit which recognizes 
them ? Are these laws not manifested through the 
whole universe, from planet to planet, from sun to 
sun ? 

Verily, the immortal Spirit will ever reproduce its in- 
ward world, even if the scene of action is changed, and 
the stuff for working is changed. Every man will, as it 
was said by the prophet of old, " awake in his oivn part, 
when the days (of sublunary life) will be ended ! " 

I know that in my final hopes beyond this world, I 

shall look forward in prayer and hope, to a home among 

trees and flowers planted by the hand of my friend, there 

to see him again and with him to explore a new world — 

with him to adore ! 

FREDEKIKA BREMER. 



HORTICULTURE. 



HORTICULTUEE. 



I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 



July, 1846. 

BRIGHT and beautiful June! Embroidered with clusters of 
odorous roses, and laden with ruddy cherries and strawberries ; 
rich with the freshness of spring, and the luxuriance of summer, — 
leafy June ! K any one's heart does not swell with the unwritten 
thoughts that belong to this season, then is he only fit for " treasons, 
stratagems and spoils." He does not practically believe that " God 
made the country ^^ 

Flora and Pomona, from amid the blossoming gardens and 
orchards of June, smile graciously as we write these few intro- 
ductory words to their circle of devotees. Happy are we to know 
that it is not to us a new or strange circle, but to feel that large 
numbers of our readers are already congenial and familiar spirits. 
Angry volumes of politics have we written none; but peaceful 
books, humbly aiming to weave something more into the fair gar- 
land of the "beautiful and useful, that encircles this excellent old 
Earth. 

To the thousands, who have kindly made our rural volumes part 
of their household library, we offer this new production, which be- 
gins to unfold itself now, in the midsummer of the year. In its 
pages, from month to month, we shall give them a collection of all 



4 HORTICULTURE. 

that can most interest those whose feelings are firmly rooted in the 
soil, and its kindred avocations. The garden and the orchard ; the 
hot-house and the conservatory ; the park and the pleasure-grounds ; 
all, if. we can read them rightly, shall be made to preach useful 
lessons in our pages. All fruitful and luxuriant grounds shall we 
revel in, and delight to honor. Blooming trees, and fruitful vines, 
we shall open our lips to praise. And if nature has been over-par- 
tial to any one part of the globe, either in good gardens, fair flowers, 
or good fruits, — -if she has any where lavished secret vegetable trea- 
sures that our cultivators have not yet made prizes of, we promise 
our readers to watch closely, and to give a faithful account of them. 
Skilful cultivators promise to make these sheets the repository of 
their knowledge. Sound practice, and ingenious theory will be con- 
tinually developed and illustrated. The humblest cottage kitchen 
garden, as well as the most extended pleasure-grounds, Avill occupy 
the attention of the pens in our service. Beautiful flowers shall 
picture themselves in our columns, till even our sterner utilitarians 
shall be tempted to admire and cultivate them ; and the honeyed, 
juicy gifts of Pomona shall be treated of till every one who reads 
shall discover that the most delicious products of our soil are no 
longer forbidden fruits. 

Fewer, perhaps, are there, who have watched as closely as our- 
selves the zeal and enthusiasm which the last five years have 
begotten in American Horticulture. Every where, on both sides 
of the Alleghanies, are our friends rapidly turning the fertile soil into 
luxuriant gardens, and crying out loudly for more light and niore' 
knowledge. Already do the readers of rural works in the United 
States number more than in any cisatlantic country, except garden- 
ing England. Already do our orchards cover more acres than 
those of any other country. Already are the banks of the Ohio 
becoming femous for their delicate wines. Already are the suburbs 
of our cities, and the banks of our broad and picturesque rivers, 
studded with the tasteful villa and cottage, where a charming taste 
in ornamental gardening is rapidly developing itself. The patient 
toil of the pioneer and settler has no sooner fairly ceased, than our 
people begin to enter with the same zeal and spirit into the refine- 
ments and enjoyments which belong to a country life, and a country 



INTRODUCTORY. 



home. A fortunate range of climate — lands fertile and easily 
acquired, tempt persons even of little means and leisure into the 
delights of gardening. Where peaches and melons, the richest 
fruits of the tropics, are raised without walls — where apples and 
pears, the pride of the temperate zones, are often grown with little 
more than the trouble of planting them — who would not be tempted 
to join in the enthusiasm of the exclamation, 

"Allons mes amis, il faut cultiver nos jardins." 

Behold us then, with all this growing zeal of our countrymen 
for our beautiful and favorite art, unable to resist the temptation of 
commencing new labors in its behalf Whatever our own feeble 
eflforts can achieve, whatever our more intelligent correspondents 
can accomplish, shall be done to render worthy this monthly record 
of the progress of horticulture and its kindred pursuits. If it is a 
laudable ambition to " make two blades of grass grow where only 
one grew before," we shall hope for the encouragement, and assistance, 
and sympathy of all those who would see our vast territory made 
smiling with gardens, and rich in all that makes one's country 
worth living and dying for. 



II. 

HINTS ON FLOWER-GARDENS. 

April, 1847. 

WE are once more unlocked from the chilling embraces of the 
Ice-King! April, full of soft airs, balm -dropping showers, 
and fitful gleams of sunshine, brings life and animation to the mil- 
lions of embryo leaves and blossoms, that, quietly folded up in the 
bud, have slept the mesmeric sleep of a northern winter — April, 
that first gives us of the Northern States our proper spring flowers, 
which seem to succeed almost by magic to the barrenness of the 
month gone by. A few pale snowdrops, sun-bright crocuses, and 
timidly blushing mezereums, have already gladdened us, like the 
few faint bars of golden and ruddy light that usher in the full radi- 
ance of sunrise ; but April scatters in her train as she goes out, the 
fii'st richness and beauty that really belong to a temperate spiing. 
Hyacinths, and daffodils, and violets, bespread her lap and fill the 
air with fragrance, and the husbandman beholds with joy his orchards 
gay with the thousand blossoms — beautiful harbingers of luscious 
and abundant crops. 

All this resurrection of sweetness and beauty, inspires us with 
a desire to look into the Flower- Garden, and to say a few words 
about it and the flowers themselves. We trust there are none of 
" our parish," who, though they may not make flower-gardens, can 
turn away with impatient or unsympathizing hearts from flowers 
themselves. If there are such, we must, at the very threshhold of 
the matter, borrow a homily for them from that pure and eloquent 
preacher, Mary Howitt : 



HINTS ON FLOWER-GARDENS. *J 

" God might have made the earth bi-ing forth 
Enough for great and small, 
The oak tree and the cedar tree, 
Without a flower at all. 

" Our outward life requires them not — 
Then wherefore had they birth ? 
To minister delight to man, 
To beautify the earth. 

"To comfort man, to whisper hope 
Whene'er his faith is dim ; 
For who so careth for the flowers, 
Will much more care for him ! " 

Now, there are many genuine lovers of flowei's who have at- 
tempted to make flower-gardens — in the simphcity of their hearts 
beHe\dng it to be the easiest thing in the world to arrange so many 
beautiful annuals and perennials into " a living knot of wonders " — 
who have quite failed in realizing all that they conceived of and 
fairly expected when they first set about it. It is easy enough to 
draw upon paper a pleasing plan of a flower-garden, whether in the 
geometric J or the natural, or the '■'■ c/ardenesque ^'' style, that shall 
satisfy the eye of the beholder. But it is far more difiicult to plant 
and arrange a garden of this kind in such a way as to afford a 
constant succession of beauty, both in blossom and leaf Indeed, 
among the hundreds of avowed flower-gardens which we have 
seen in different parts of the country, public and private, we cannot 
name half-a-dozen which are in any considerable degree satisfactory. 

The two leading faults in all our flower-gardens, are the want 
of lirojicr selection in the plants themselves, and a faulty arrange- 
ment, by which as much surface of bare soil meets the eye as is 
clothed with verdure and blossoms. 

Regarding the first effect, it seems to us that the entire beauty 
of a flower-garden almost depends upon it. However elegant or 
striking may be the design of a garden, that design is made poor 
or valueless, when it is badly planted so as to conceal its merits, or 
filled with a selection of unsuitable plants, which, from their coarse 
or ragged habit of growth, or their remaining in bloom but a short 



.IB HORTICULTURE. 

time, give the whole a confused and meagre effect. A flower-gar- 
den, deserving the name, should, if jjossible, be as rich as a piece 
of embroidery, during the whole summer and autumn. In a botan- 
ical gai'den, or the collection of a curious amateur, one expects to 
see variety of species, plants of all known forms, at the expense of 
every thing else. But in a flower-garden, properly so called, the 
whole object of which is to afford a continual display of beautiful 
colors and delicious odors, we conceive that every thing should be 
rejected (or only most sparingly introduced), which does not com- 
bine almost perpetual blooming, with neat and agreeable habit of 
growth. 

The passion for novelty and variety among the lovers of flowers, 
is as great as in any other enthusiasts. But as some of the greatest 
of the old painters are said to owe the success of their master- 
pieces to the few colors they employed, so we are confident the most 
beautiful flower-gardens are those where but few sjiecies are intro- 
duced, and those only such as possess the important qualities we 
have alluded to. 

Thus among flowering shrubs, taking for illustration the tribe 
of Roses, we would reject, in our choice flower-garden, nearly all the 
old class of roses, which are in bloom for a few days and but once 
a year, and exhibit during the rest of the season, for the most part, 
meagre stems and dingy foliage. We would supply their jjlace by 
Bourbons, Perpetuals, Bengals, etc., roses which offer an abundance 
of blossoms and fine fresh foliage during the whole growing season. 
Among annuals, we would reject every thing short-lived, and intro- 
duce only those like the Portulaccas, Verbenas, Petunias, Mignon- 
ette, Phlox Drummondii, and the like, which are always in bloom, 
and fresh and pretty in habit.* 

After this we would add to the effect of our selection of pei-pet- 
ual blooming plants, by abandoning altogether the old method of 
interminrjling species and varieties of all colors and habits of growth, 

* Some of the most beautiful of the perpetual blooming plants for the 
flower-garden, are the Salvia.i, Bouvardias, Scarlet Geraniums, <&c., propei'ly 
green-house plants, and requiring protection in a pit or warm cellar in win 
ten " Bedded out " in May, they form rich flowing masses till the frosts of 
autumn. 



HINTS ON FLOWER-GARDENS. 9 

and substitute for it the opposite mode of grouping or massing colors 
and particular species of plants, Masses of crimson and white, of 
yellow and purple, and the other colors and shades, brought boldly 
into contrast, or disposed so as to form an agi-eeable harmony, will 
attract the eye, and make a much more forcible and delightful im- 
pression, than can ever be produced by a confused mixture of shades 
and colors, nowhere distinct enough to give any decided effect to 
the whole. The effect of thus collecting masses of colors in a flower- 
garden in this way, is to give it what the painters call breadth of 
effect^ which in the other mode is entirely frittered away and de- 
stroyed. 

This arranging plants in patches or masses, each composed of 
the same species, also contributes to do away in a great degree with 
the second fault which we have alluded to as a grievous one in 
most of our flower-gardens — that of the exhibition of bai'e surface 
of soil — parts of beds not covered by foliage and flowers. 

In a hot climate, like that of our summers, nothing is more un- 
pleasing to the eyes or more destructive to that expression of soft- 
ness, verdure, and gayety, that should exist in the flower-garden, than 
to behold the surface of the soil in any of the beds or parterres un- 
clothed with plants. The dryness and parched appearance of such 
portions goes far to impair whatever air of freshness and beauty 
may be imparted by the flowers themselves. Now whenever beds 
are planted with a heterogeneous mixture of plants, tall and short, 
spreading and straggling, it is nearly impossible that considerable 
parts of the surface of the soil should not be visible. On the con- 
traiy, where species and varieties of plants, chosen for their excel- 
lent habits of growth and flowering, are planted in masses, almost 
every part of the surface of the beds may be hidden from the eye, 
which we consider almost a sine qua non in all good flower-gardens. 

Following out this principle — on the whole perhaps the most 
important in all flower-gardens in this country — that there 
should, if possible, be no bare surface soil visible, our own taste 
leads us to prefer the modern English style of laying out flower- 
gardens upon a groundwork of grass or turf, kept scrupulously 
short. Its advantage over a flower-garden composed only of beds 
with a narrow edging and gravel walks, consists in the greater soft- 



10 HORTICULTURE. 

ness, freshness and verdure of the green turf, which serves as a set- 
ting to the flower beds, and heightens the briUiancy of the flowers 
themselves. Still, both these modes have their merits, and each is 
best adapted to certain situations, and harmonizes best with its ap- 
propriate scenery. 

There are two other defects in many of our flower-gardens, 
easily remedied, and about which we must say a word or two in 
passing. 

One of these is the common practice, brought over here by 
gardeners from England, of forming raised convex beds for flowering 
plants. This is a very unmeaning and injurious practice in this 
country, as a moment's reference to the philosophy of the thing will 
convince any one. In a damp climate, like that of England, a bed 
with a high convex surface, by throwing oft' the superfluous water, 
keeps the plants from suffering by excess of wet, and the form 
is an excellent one. In this country, where most frequently our 
flower-gardens fail from drouth, what sound reason can be given 
for forming the beds with a raised and rounded surface of six inches 
in eveiy three feet, so as to throw off four-fifths of every shower ? 
The true mode, as a little reflection and experience will convince 
any one, is to form the surface of the bed nearly level, so that it 
may retain its due proportion of the rains that fall. 

Next to this is the defect of not keeping the walks in flower- 
gardens full of gravel. In many instances that we could name, 
the level of the gravel in the walk is six inches below that of the 
adjoining bed or border of turf. This gives a harsh and ditch-like 
character to the walks, quite at variance with the smoothness and 
perfection of details which ought especially to characterize so ele- , 
gant a portion of the grounds as this in question. " Keep the walks 
brimful of gravel," was one of the maxims most strongly insisted 
on by the late Mr. Loudon, and one to which we fully subscribe. 

We insert here a copy of the plan of the celebrated flower-gar- 
den of Baron Von Hugel, near Vienna. This gentleman is one of 
the most enthusiastic devotees to Horticulture in Germany. In the 
Algemeine Garten Zeittmg, a detailed account is given, by the Se- 
cretary of the Imperial Horticultural Society of Vienna, of the resi- 
dence and grounds of the Baron, from which we gather that they 




The Roccoco Garden of Baron Hugel, near Vienna. 



HINTS ON FLOWER-GARDENS. 11 

are not surpassed in the richness and variety of their botanical trea- 
sures by any private collection on the Continent. "A forest of 
Camellias almost makes one believe that he is in Japan." Some 
of these are 22 feet high, and altogether the collection numbers 
1000 varieties. The hot^house devoted to orchids, or air plants, 
contains 200 varieties, and the various green-houses include equally 
rich collections of the exotics of various climates. Regarding the 
Baron's flower-garden itself, we quote the words of M. Peinter. 

" But still another most delightful scene is reserved, which is a 
mosaic picture of flowers, a so-called Rococo garden. We have to 
thank Baron Von Iliigel for giving the first example of a style, since 
pretty largely copied, both here and in the adjacent country. A 
garden, laid out in this manner, demands much cleverness and skill 
in the gardener, both in the choice and the arrangement of the 
flowers. He must also take care that, during the whole summer, 
there are no portions destitute of flowering plants. It is but justice 
to the Baron's head gardener, to aflSrm that he has completely ac- 
complished this task, and has been entirely successful in carrying- 
out the design or purjiose of this garden. The connoisseur does not 
indeed see the usual collection of ornamental plants in this sea of 
flowers, but a great many varieties ; and, in short, here, as every- 
where else, the aesthetic taste of the Baron predominates. Beau- 
tiful is this garden within a garden, and hence it has become the 
model garden of Austria. Around it the most charming landscape 
opens to the view, gently swelling hills, interspersed with pretty 
villages, gardens and grounds." 

In the plan of the garden, a and b are masses of shrubs ; c, 
circular beds, separated by a border or belt of turf, e, from the ser- 
pentine bed, d. The whole of this running pattern is surrounded 
by a border of turf, /; ff and h are gravel walks ; ^, beds, with 
pedestal and statue in the centre ; k, small oval beds, separated from 
the bed, I, by a border of turf"; m, w, o, p, irregular or arabesque 
beds, set in turf. 

As a good deal of the interest of such a flower-garden as this, 
depends on the plan itself, it is e\adent that the beds should be 
filled with groups or masses, composed mostly of low growing 
flowers, as tall ones would interfere with, or break up its effect as 



12 HORTICULTURE. 

a whole. Mr. Loudon, in some criticisms on this garden, in the 
Gardener's Magazine^ says, that the running chain pattern of beds, 
which forms the outer border to the design, was originated in Eng- 
land, by the Duchess of Bedford, about the year 1800. "It is," 
he remarks, " capable of producing a very brilliant effect, by plant- 
ing the circular beds, c, with bright colors, each alternating with 
white. For example, beginning at c, and proceeding to the right, 
we might have dark red, white, blue, ivhite, yellow, white, scarlet, 
white, purple, white, and so on. The interlacing beds, d, might be 
planted on exactly the same principle, but omitting white. Pro- 
c;eeding to the right from the bed, d, which may be yellow, the next 
may be crimson, the next purple, the next orange, and so on." 

This plan is by no means faultless, yet as it is admirably planted 
with ever-blooming flowers, and kept in the highest order, it is said 
to attract universal admiration, and is worthy of the examination of 
om- floral friends. We should imagine it much inferior, in design 
and general effect, to the very beautiful new flower-garden at 
Montgomerij Place, the seat of Mrs. Edward Li\dngston, on the 
Hudson, which is about double its size, and is undoubtedly one of 
the most beautiful and most tastefully managed examples of a flower- 
garden in America. 



III. 

INFLUENCE OF HORTICULTURE. 

July, 1847. 

THE multiplication of Horticultural Societies is taking place so 
rapidly of late, in various parts of the country, as to lead one 
to reflect somewhat on their influence, and that of the art they 
foster, upon the character of our people. 

Most persons, no doubt, look upon them as performing a work 
of some usefulness and elegance, by promoting the culture of fruits 
and flowers, and introducing to all parts of the country the finer 
species of vegetable productions. In other words, they are thought 
to add very considerably to the amount of physical gratifications 
which every American citizen endeavors, and has a right to endea- 
vor, to assemble around him. 

Granting all the foregoing, we are inclined to claim also, for 
horticultural pursuits, a political and moral influence vastly more 
significant and important than the mere gratification of the senses. 
We think, then, in a few words, that Horticulture and its kindred 
arts, tend strongly to fix the habits, and elevate the character, of our 
whole rural population. 

One does not need to be much of a philosopher to remark that one 
of the most striking of our national traits, is the spirit of unrest. 
It is the grand energetic element which leads us to clear vast forests, 
and settle new States, with a rapidity unparalleled in the world's 
histoiy ; the spirit, possessed with which, our yet comparatively 
scanty people do not find elbow-room enough in a territory already 
in their possession, and vast enough to hold the greatest of ancient 



14 HORTICULTURE. 

empires ; whicli drives the emigrant's wagon across vast sandy de- 
serts to California, and over Rocky Mountains to Oregon and the 
Pacific ; which builds up a great State like Ohio in 30 years, so 
populous, civilized and productive, that the bare recital of its growth 
sounds like a genuine miracle to European ears ; and which over- 
runs and takes possession of a whole empire, like that of Mexico, 
while the cabinets of old monarchies are debating whether or not it 
is necessary to interfere and restore the balance of power in the new 
world as in the old. 

This is the grand and exciting side of the picture. Turn it in an- 
other light, and study it, and the effect is by no means so agreeable 
to the reflective mind. The spirit of unrest, followed into the bosom 
of society, makes of man a feverish being, in whose Tantalus' cup 
repose is the unattainable drop. Unable to take root any where, he 
leads, socially and physically, the uncertain life of a tree transplanted 
from place to place, and shifted to a different soil every season. 

It has been shrewdly said that what qualities we do not possess, 
are always in our mouths. Our countrymen, it seems to us, are 
fonder of no one Anglo-Saxon word than the term settle* It was 
the great object of our forefathers to find a proper spot to settle. 
Every year, large numbers of our population from the older States 
go west to settle ; while those already \ye?,i,pull up, with a kind of 
desperate joy, their yet new-set stakes, and go farther west to settle 
again. So truly national is the word, that all the business of the 
country, from State debts to the products of a " truck farm," are 
not satisfactorily adjusted till they are " settled ; " and no sooner is a 
passenger fairly on board one of our river steamers, than he is 
politely and emphatically invited by a sable representative of its 
executive power, to " call at the captain's office and settle ! " 

Yet, as a people, we are never settled. It is one of the first 
points that strikes a citizen of the old world, where something of 
the dignity of repose, as well as the value of action, enters into their 
ideal of life. De Tocqueville says, in speaking of our national 
trait : 

* Anglo-Saxon sath-lian, from the verb settan, to set^ to cease from mo- 
tion, to fix a dwelling-place, to repose, etc. 



INFLUENCE OF HORTICULTURE. 15 

" At first sight, there is something surprising in this strange un- 
rest of so many happy men, restless in the midst of abundance. The 
spectacle itself is, however, as old as the world. The novelty is to 
see a whole 'people furnish an exemplification of it. 

" In the United States a man builds a house to spend his latter 
years in, and sells it before the roof is on ; he brings a field into 
tillage, and leave other men to gather the crops ; he embraces a 
profession, and gives it up ; he settles in a place, which he soon 
after leaves, in order to carry his changeable longings elsewhere. If 
his private affairs leave him any leisure he instantly plunges into 
the vortex of politics ; and if at the end of a year of unremitting 
labor, he finds he has a few days' vacation, his eager curiosity whirls 
him over the vast extent of the United States, and he will travel 
fifteen hundred miles in a few days, to shake off his happiness." 

Much as. we admire the energy of our people, we value no less 
the love of order, the obedience to law, the security and repose of 
society, the love of home, and the partiality to localities endeared 
by birth or association, of which it is in some degree the antagonist. 
And we are therefore deeply convinced that whatever tends, without 
checking due energy of character, but to develops along with it 
certain \4rtues that will keep it within due bounds, may be looked 
upon as a boon to the nation. 

Now the difference between the son of Ishmael, who lives in 
tents, and that man who has the strongest attachment to the home 
of his fathers, is, in the beginning, one mainly of outward circum- 
stances. He whose sole property is a tent and a camel, whose ties 
to one spot are no stronger than the cords which confine his habita- 
tion to the sandy floor of the desert, who can break up his encamp- 
ment at an hour's notice, and choose a new and equally agreeable 
site, fifty miles distant, the next day — such a person is very little 
likely to become much more strongly attached to any one spot of 
earth than another. 

The condition of a western emigrant is not greatly dissimilar. 
That long covered wagon, which is the Noah's ark of his preserva- 
tion, is also the concrete essence of house and home to him. He 
emigrates, he " squats," he " locates," but before he can be fairly 
said to have a fixed home, the spirit of unrest besets him ; he sells 



;h 



16 HORTICULTURE. 

his " digging " to some less adventurous pioneer, and tackling the 
wagon of the wilderness, migrates once more. 

It must not be supposed, large as is the infusion of restlessness 
in our people that there are not also large exceptions to the general 
rule. Else there would never be growing villages and prosperous 
towns. Nay, it cannot be overlooked by a careful observer, that 
the tendency "to settle" is slowly but gradually on the increase, 
and that there is, in all the older portions of the country, growing 
evidence that the Anglo-Saxon love of home is gradually developing 
itself out of the Anglo-American love of change. 

It is not difficult to see how sti'ongly horticulture contributes to 
the development of local attachments. In it lies the most powerful 
philtre that civilized man has yet found to charm him to one spot 
of earth. It transforms what is only a tame meadow and a bleak 
aspect, into an Eden of interest and delights. It makes all the 
difterence between "Araby the blest," and a pine barren. It gives 
a bit of soil, too insignificant to find a place in the geography of the 
earth's surface, such an importance in the eyes of its possessor, that 
he finds it more attractive than countless acres of unknown and un- 
explored "territory." In other words, it contains the mind and soul 
of the man, materialized in many of the fairest and richest forms of 
nature, so that he looks upon it as tearing himself up, root and 
branch, to ask him to move a mile to the right or the left. Do we 
need to say more, to jirove that it is the panacea that really " settles " 
mankind ? 

It is not, therefore, without much pleasurable emotion, that we 
have had notice lately of the formation of five new Horticultural 
societies, the last at St. Louis, and most of them west of the Alle- 
ghanies. Whoever lives to see the end of the next cycle of our 
race, will see the great valleys of the West the garden of the world ; 
and we watch with interest the first development, in the midst of 
the busy fermentation of its active masses, of that beautiful and quiet 
spirit, of the joint culture of the earth and the heart, that is destined 
to give a tone to the future character of its untold millions. 

The increased love of home and the garden, in the older States, 
is a matter of every -day remark ; and it is not a little curious, that 
just in proportion to the intelligence and settled character of its popu- 



INFLUENCE OF HORTICULTURE. 17 

lation, is the amount of interest manifested in horticultm'e. Thus, 
the three most settled of the original States, we suppose to be Massa- 
chusetts, New- York and Pennsylvania ; and in these States horti- 
culture is more eagerly pursued than in any others. The first 
named State has now seven horticultural societies ; the second, 
seven ; the third, three. Following out the comparison in the 
cities, we should say that Boston had the most settled population, 
Philadelphia the next, and New- York the least so of any city in the 
Union ; and it is well known that the horticultural society of Boston 
is at this moment the most energetic one in the country, and that it 
is stimulated by the interest excited by societies in all its neighbor- 
ing towns. The Philadelphia society is exceedingly prosperous ; 
while in New- York, we regret to say, that the numerous efibrts that 
have been made to establish firmly a society of this kind have not, 
up to this time, resulted in any success whatever. Its mighty tide 
of people is as yet too much possessed with the spirit of business and 
of unrest." * 

* "The New-York Horticultural Society" was oi-ganized in the spring 
of 1852, and is already in a flourishing condition. — Ed. 



IV. 



A TALK WITH FLORA AND POMONA. 

September, 1847. 

WE beg leave to inform such of our readers as may be inter- 
ested, that we have lately had the honor of a personal inter- 
view with the distinguished deities that preside over the garden and 
the orchard, Flora and Pomona. 

The time was a soft balmy August night ; the scene was a leafy 
nook in our own grounds, where, after the toils of the day, we were 
enjoying the dolce far niente of a hammock, and wondering at the 
necessity of any thing fairer or diviner than rural nature, and such 
moonlight as then filled the vaulted heaven, bathed the tufted fore- 
ground of trees, the distant purple hills, and 

" Tipt with silver all the fruit tree tops." 

It was a scene for an artist ; yet, as we do not write for the 
Court Journal, we must be pardoned for any little omission in the 
costumes or equipages of the divinities themselves. Indeed, we were 
so thoroughly captivated with the immortal candor and freshness of 
the goddesses, that we find many of the accessories have escaped our 
memory. Pomona's breath, however, when she spoke, filled the 
air with the odor of ripe apricots, and she held in her left hand a 
fruit, which we immediately recognized as one of the golden apples 
of the Hesperides, (of which she knew any gardener upon earth 
would give his right hand for a slip,) and which in the course of our 
interview, she acknowledged was the only sort in the m}i;hological 
gardens which excels the Newtown Pippin. Her lips had the dewy 



A TALK WITH FLORA AND POMONA. 19 

freshness of the ruddiest strawberries raised by Mr. Longworth's 
favorite old Cincinnati market woman ; and there was a bright 
sparkle in her eye, that assured us there is no trouble with the cur- 
culio in the celestial orchards. 

But if we were charmed with the ruddy beauty of Pomona, we 
were still more fascinated by the ideal freshness and gi-ace of Flora. 
She wore on her head a kind of fanciful crown of roses, which were 
not only dewy moss roses, of the loveliest shades imaginable, but the 
colors themselves changed every moment, as she turned her head, 
in a manner that struck us quite speechless with admiration. The 
goddess observing this, very graciously remarked that these roses were 
the true perpetuals, since they not only really bloomed always, but 
when plucked, they retained their brilliancy and freshness for ever. 
Her girdle was woven in a kind of green and silver pattern of jas- 
mine leaves and starry blossoms, but of a species far more lovely 
than any in Mr. Paxton's Magazine. She held a bouquet in her 
hand, composed of sweet scented camellias, and violets as dark as 
sapphire, which she said her gardener had brought from the new 
planet Neptune ; and unique and fragrant blossoms continually 
dropped from her robe, as she walked about, or raised her arms in 
gestures graceful as the swinging of a garland wooed by the west 
wind. 

After some stammering on our own part, about the honor con- 
ferred on an humble mortal like ourselves — rare visits of the god- 
desses to earth, etc., they, understanding, probably, what Mr. Beecher 
calls our " amiable fondness for the Hudson," obligingly put us at 
our ease, by paying us some compliments on the scenery of the 
Highlands, as seen at that moment from our garden seat, comparing 
the broad river, radiant with the chaste light of the moon, to some 
favorite lake owned by the immortals, of whose name, we are sorry 
to say, we are at this moment entirely oblivious. 

Our readers will not, of course, expect us to repeat all that passed 
during this enchanting interview. But, as we are obliged to own 
that the visit was not altogether on our own behalf, or rather that 
the turn of the discourse held by our immortal guests showed that 
it was chiefly intended to be laid before the readers of the Horticul- 
turist, we lose no time in putting the latter en rapport. 



20 HORTICULTURE. 

Pomona opened the discourse by a few graceful remarks, touch- 
ing the gratification it gave them that the moderns, down to the 
present generation, had piously recognized her guardian rights and 
those of her sister Flora, even while those of many of the other 
Olympians, such as Jupiter, Pan, Vulcan, and the like, were nearly 
forgotten. The wonderful fondness for fruits and flowers, growing 
up in the western world, had, she declared, not escaped her eye, and 
it received her warmest approbation. She said something that we 
do not quite remember, in the style of that good old phrase, of 
" making the wilderness blossom like the rose," and declared that 
Flora intended to festoon every cottage in America with double 
Michigan roses. Wistarias, and sweet-scented vines. For her own 
part, she said, her people were busy enough in their invnsible super- 
intendence of the orchard planting now going on at such a gigantic 
rate in America, especially in the Western States. Such was the 
fever in some of those districts, to get large plantations of fruit, that 
she could not, for the life of her, induce men to pause long enough 
to select their ground or the proper sorts of fi'uit to be planted. As 
a last resort, to keep them a little in check, she was obliged, against 
her better feelings, to allow the blight to cut off part of an orchard 
now and then. Otherwise the whole country would be filled up 
wth poor miserable odds and ends from Europe — "Beurres and 
Bergamots, with more sound in their French names, than flavor 
under their skins." 

These last words, we confess, startled us so much, that we opened 
our eyes rather widely, and called upon the name of Dr. Van Mons, 
the great Belgian — spoke of the gratitude of the pomological world, 
etc. To our surprise, Pomona declared that she had her doubts 
about the Belgian professor — she said he was a very crotchety man, 
and although he had devoted his life to her service, yet he had such 
strange whims and caprices about improving fruits by a regular sys- 
tem of degeneration or running them out, that she could make 
nothing of him. " Depend upon it," she said, " many of his sorts 
are worthless, — most of them have sickly constitutions, and," she 
added, with some emphasis, snapping her fingers as she spoke, " I 
would not give one sound healthy seedling pear, springing up under 
natural culture in your American soil, for all that Dr. Van Mons 



A TALK WITH FLORA AND POMONA. 21 

ever raised ! " [We beg our readers to understand that these were 
Pomona's words and not ours.] She gave us, after this, very special 
charge to impress it upon her devotees in the United States, not to 
be too mucli smitten with the love of new names, and great collec- 
tions. It gave her more satisfaction to see the orchards and fruit 
room of one of her liege subjects teeming with the abundance of the 
few sorts of real golden merit, than to see whole acres of new varie- 
ties that have no other value than that of novelty. She said too, 
that it was truly amazing how this passion for collecting fruits — a 
genuine monomania — grew upon a poor mortal, when he was once 
attacked by it ; so that indeed, if he could not add every season at 
least fifty new sorts from the continent, with some such outlandish 
names, (which she said she would never recognize,) as Beurr6 bleu 
cfeti nouveau de Scrowsywowsy^ etc., he would positively hang him- 
self in a fit of the blues ! 

Pomona further drew our attention in some sly remarks that 
were half earnest and half satire, to the figure that many of these 
"Belgian pericarps" cut at those handsome levees, which her vota- 
ries among us hold in the shape of the great September exhibitions. 
She said it was really droll to see, at such shows as those of our two 
large cities, where there was a profusion of ripe and luscious fruit, 
that she would have been proud of in her own celestial orchards — 
to see there intermingled some hundred or so mean looking, hard 
green pears, that never had ripened, or never did, would, or could 
ripen, so as to be palatable to any but a New Zealander. " Do so- 
licit my friends there, for the sake of my feelings," said she, " to give 
the gentlemen who take such pleasure in exhibiting this degenerate 
foreign squad, a separate 'green room' for themselves." To this 
remark we smiled and bowed low, though we would not venture to 
carry out her suggestion for the world. 

We had a delightful little chat with Flora, about some new 
plants which she told us grew in certain unknown passes in the 
Rocky Mountains, and mountainous parts of Mexico, that will prove 
quite hardy with us, and which neither Mr. Fortune nor the London 
Horticultural Society know any thing about. But she finally in- 
formed us, that her real object in making herself visible on the 
earth at present, with Madam Pomona, was to beg us to enter her 



22 HORTICULTURE. 

formal and decided protest against the style of decorations called 
after her name, and which had, for several yeai-s past, made the 
otherwise brilliant Autumnal Horticultural Shows in our quar- 
ter of the globe so disagreeable an offering to her. " To call the 
monstrous formations, which, under the name of temples, stars, tri- 
pods, and obelisks — great bizarre masses of flowers plastered on 
wooden frames — to call these after her name, ' Floral designs,' was," 
she said, "even more than the patience of a goddess could bear." 
If those who make them are sincerely her devoted admirers, as they 
profess to be, she begged us to say to them, that, unless they had 
designs upon her flow of youth and spirits, that had hitherto been 
eternal, she trusted they would hereafter desist. 

We hereupon ventured to offer some apology for the offending 
parties, by saying they were mostly the work of the "bone and 
sinew" of the gardening profession, men with blunt fingei-s but 
earnest souls, who worked for days upon what they fancied was a 
worthy offering to be laid upon her altars. She smiled, and said 
the intention was accepted, but not its results, and hinted something 
about the same labor being performed under the direction of the 
more tasteful eye of ladies, who should invent and arrange, while 
the fingers of honest toil wrought the ruder outline only. 

Flora then hinted to us, how much more beautiful flowers were 
when arranged in the simplest forms, and said, when combined 
or moulded into shapes or devices, nothing more elaborate or arti- 
ficial than a vase-form is really pleasing. Baskets^ moss-covered 
and flower-woven, she said, were thought elegant enough for Para- 
dise itself. " There are not only baskets," continued she, " that are beau- 
tiful lying down, and showing inside a rich mosaic of flowers — each 
basket, large or small, devoted perhaps, to some one choice flower 
in its many varieties ; but baskets on the tops of mossy pedestals, 
bearing tasteful emblems interwoven on their sides ; and baskets 
hanging from ceilings, or high festooned arches — in which case 
they display in the most graceful and becoming manner, all 
manner of drooping and twining plants, the latter stealing out 
of the nest or body of the basket, and waving to and fro in the air 
they perfume." " Then there is the garland,^'' continued ou-r fair 
guest; "it is quite amazing, that since the days of those clever and 



A TALK WITH FLORA AND POMONA. 23 

harmonious people, the Greeks, no one seems to know any thing of 
the beauty of the garland. Now in feet nothing is more beautiful 
or becoming than flowers woven into tasteful garlands or chaplets. 
The form a circle — that emblem of eternity, so full of dread and 
mystery to you mortals — and the size is one that may be carried in 
the hand or hung up, and it always looks lovely. Believe me, 
nothing is prettier in my eyes, Avhich, young as they look, have had 
many thousands of your years of experience, than a fresh, green 
garland woven with bright roses." 

As she said this, she seized a somewhat common basket that lay 
near us, and passing her delicate fingers over it, as she plucked a 
few flowers from the surrounding plants, she held it, a picture of 
magical verdure and blossoms, aloft in the air over our heads, while 
on her arm she hung a garland as exquisitely formed and propor- 
tioned as if cut in marble, with, at the same time, all the airiness 
which only flowers can have. The effect was ravishing ! simplicity, 
delicacy, gracefulness, and perfume. The goddess moved around us 
with an air and in an attitude compared with which the glories of 
Titian and Raphael seem tame and cold, and as the basket was again 
passing over our head, we were just reaching out our hand to detain 
the lovely vision, when, unluckily, the parti-colored dog that guards 
our demesne, broke into a loud bark ; Pomona hastily seized her 
golden apple ; Flora dropped our basket (which fell to the ground in 
its wonted garb of plain willow), and both vanished into the dusky 
gloom of the night shadows ; at that moment, suddenly rising up 
in our hammock, we found we had been — dreaming. 



V. 

A CHAPTER ON ROSES. 

August, 1848. 

AFRESH bouquet of midsummer roses stands upon the table be. 
fore us. The morning dew-drops hang, heavy as emeralds, upon 
branch and buds ; soft and rich colors delight the eye with their 
lovely hues, and that rose-odor, which, every one feels, has not lost 
any thing of its divine sweetness since the first day the flower bloomed 
in that heaven-garden of Eve, fills the air. Yes, the flowers have 
it ; and if we are not fairly forced to say something this month in 
behalf of roses, then was Dr. Darwin mistaken in his theory of 
vegetable magnetism. 

We believe it was that monster, the Duke of Guise, who al- 
ways made his escape at the sight of a rose. If there are any " out- 
side barbarians " of this stamp among the readers of our " flowery 
land," let them glide out while the door is open. They deserve to 
be drowned in a butt of attar of rose — the insensibles ! We can 
well afibrd to let them go, indeed ; for we feel that we have only to 
mention the name of a rose, to draw more closely around us the 
thousands of the feirer and better part of our readers, with whom it 
is the type of every thing fair and lovely on earth. 

"Dear flower of heaven and love ! thou glorious thing 
That lookest out the garden nooks among ; 
Rose, that art ever fair and ever young ; 
Was it some angel on invisible wing 
Hover'd around thy fragrant sleep, to fling 
His glowing mantle of warm sunset hues 



A CHAPTER ON ROSES. 26 

O'er thy unfolding petals, wet with dews, 
Such as the flower-fays to Titania bring ? 

flower of thousand memories and dreams, 
That take the heart with faintness, while we gaze 
On the rich depths of thy inwoven maze ; 
Fi'om the green banks of Eden's blessed streams 

1 dream'd thee brought, of brighter days to tell 
Long pass'd, but promised yet with us to dwell." 

K there is any proof necessary that the rose has a diviner origin 
than all otlier flowers, it is easily found in the unvarying constancy of 
mankind to it for so many long centuries. Fashions there have been 
innumerable, in ornaments of all sorts, from simple sea-shells, worn 
by Nubian maidens, to costly diamonds, that heightened the charms 
of the proudest court beauty — silver, gold, precious stones — all hav(^ 
their season of favor, and then again sink into comparative neglect ; 
but a simple rose has ever been and will ever be the favorite emblem 
and adornment of beauty. 

" Whatsoe'er of beauty 

Yearns, and yet reposes, 

Blush, and bosom, and sweet breath, 

Took a shape in i-oses." Leigh Hont. 

Now the secret of this perpetual and undying charm about the 
rose, is not to be found in its color — there are bright lilies, and gay 
tiger-flowers, and dazzling air-plants, far more rich and vivid : it is 
not alone in fragrance, — for there are violets and jasmines with 
" more passionate sighs of sweetness ; " it is not in foliage, for there 
are laurels and magnolias, with leaves of richer and more glossy 
green. Where, then, does this secret of the world's six thousand 
yeai"s' homage lie ? 

In its being a type of infinity. Of infinity ! says our most 
innocent maiden reader, who loves roses without caring why, and 
who does not love infinity, because she does not understand it. 
Roses, -a type of infinity, says our theological reader, who has been 
in the habit of considering all flowers of the field, aye, and the gar- 
den, too, as emblems of the short-lived race of man — " born to 
trouble as the sparks fly upward." Yes, we have said it, and for 
the honor of the rose we will prove it, that the secret of the world's 



26 HORTICULTURE. 

devotion to the rose, — of her being the queen of flowers by accla- 
mation always and for ever, is that the rose is a type of infinity. 

In the first place, then, the rose is a type of infinity, because 
there is no limit to the variety and beauty of the forms and colore 
which it assumes. From the mid rose, v/hose sweet, faint odor is 
wasted in the depths of the silent wood, or the eglantine, Avhose 
wreaths of fresh sweet blossoms embroider even the dusty road 
sides, 

" Starring each bush in lanes and glades," 

to that most perfect, full, rounded, and odorous flower, that swells 
the heart of the florist as he beholds its richness and symmetry, 
what an innumerable range of shades, and forms, and colors ! And, 
indeed, with the hundreds and thousands of roses of modern times, 
we still know little of all the varied shapes which the plant has taken 
in by-gone days, and which have perished with the thousand other 
refineinents and luxuries of the nations who cultivated and enjoyed 
them.* 

All this variety of form, so far from destroying the admiration 
of mankind for the rose, actually increases it. This very character 
of infinity, in its beauty, makes it the symbol and interpreter of the 

* Many of our readers may not be aware to what perfection the culture 
of flowers was once carried in Rome. During Caesar's reign, so abundant 
had forced flowers become in that city, that when the Egyptians, intending to 
compliment him on his birthday, sent him roses in midwinter, they found 
their present almost valueless from the profusion of roses in Rome. The 
following translation of MartiaVs Latin Ode to Caesar upon this present, 
will give some idea of the state of floriculture then. There can scarcely be 
a doubt that there were hundreds of sorts of roses known to, and cultivated 
by the Romans, now entirely lost. 

" The ambitious inhabitants of the land, watered by the Nile, have sent 
thee, Caesar, the roses of winter, as a present, valuable for its novelty. 
But the boatman of Memphis will laugh at the gardens of Pharaoh as soon 
as he has tahen one step in thy capital city ; for the spring in all its charms, 
and the flowers in their fragrance and beauty, equal the glory of the fields 
of Paestum. Wherever he wanders, or casts his eyes, every street is brilliant 
with garlands of roses. And thou, Nile ! must yield to the fogs of Rome. 
Send us thy harvests, and we will send thee roses." 



A CHAPTER ON ROSES. 27 

affections of all ranks, classes, and conditions of men. The poet, 
amid all the perfections of the parterre, still prefers the scent of the 
woods and the air of freedom about the original blossom, and says — 

"Far dearer to me is the wild flower that grows 
Unseen by the brook where in shadow it flows." 

TliG cahhage-rose, that perfect emblem of healthful rural life, is 
the pride of the cottager ; the daily China rose, which cheats the 
window of the crowded city of its gloom, is the joy of the daughter 
of the humblest day laborer ; the delicate and odorous tea-rose, 
fated to be admired and to languish in the drawing-room or the 
boudoir, wins its place in the affections of those of most cultivated 
and fastidious tastes ; while the moss-rose unites the admiration of 
all classes, coming in as it does with its last added charm, to com- 
plete the circle of j^erfection. 

Again, there is the infinity of associations which float like rich 
incense about the rose, and that, after all, bind it most strongly to 
us ; for they represent the accumulated wealth of joys and sorrows, 
which has become so insej^arably connected with it in the human 
heait. 

" What were hfe witliout a rose I " 

seems to many, doubtless, to be a most extravagant aijostroj^he ; 
yet, if this single flower were to be struck out of existence, what a 
chasm in the language of the heart would be found without it ! 
What would the poets do ? They would find their finest emblem of 
female loveliness stolen away. Listen, for instance, to old Beaumont 
and Fletcher : 

" Of all flowers, 



Methinks a Rose is best ; 

It is the very emlilem of a maid; 

For when the west wind courts her gently, 

How modestly she blows and paints the sun 

"With her chaste blushes ! "When the north wind comes near hei- 

Rude and impatient, then, like chastity, 

She locks her beauties in her bud again, 

And leaves him to base briaiu" 



28 HORTICULTURE. 

What would the lovers do ? What tender confessions, hitherto 
uttered by fair half-open buds and bouquets, more eloquent of pas- 
sion than the JVouvclle Jleloise, would have to be stammered forth 
in miserable clumsy words ! How many doubtful suits would be 
lost — how many bashful hearts would never venture — how many 
rash and reckless adventurers would be shipwrecked, if the tender 
and expressive language of the rose were all suddenly lost and 
blotted out ! What could we place in the hands of childhood to 
mirror back its innocent expression so truly? What blossoms 
could bloom on the breast of the youthful beauty so typical of the 
infinity of hope and sweet thoughts, that lie folded up in her own heart, 
as fair young rose-buds ? What wreath could so lovingly encircle 
the head of the fair young bride as that of white roses, full of purity 
and grace ? And, last of all, what blossom, so expressive of human 
affections, could we find at the bier to take the place of the rose ; 
the rose, sacred to this purpose for so many ages, and with so many 
nations, 

"because its breath 



Is rich beyond the rest ; and when it dies 
It doth bequeath a charm to sweeten death." 

Barry Cornwall. 

The rose is not only infinite in its forms, hues, types, and asso- 
ciations, but it deserves an infinite member of admirers. This is the 
explanation of our desire to be eloquent in its behalf. There are, 
unfortunately, some persons who, however lovely, beautiful, or per- 
fect a thing may be in itself, will never raise their eyes to look 
at it, or open their hearts to admire it, unless it is incessantly talked 
about. 

We have always observed, however, that the great difficulty 
with those who like to talk about fruits and flowers is, when once 
talking, to stop. There is no doubt whatever, that Ave might go on, 
therefore, and fill this whole number with roses, rosariums, rosaries, 
and rose-water, but that some of our western readers, who are look- 
ing for us to give them a cure for the pear-blight, might cry out — 
" a blight on your roses ! " We must, therefore, grow more systematic 
and considerate in our remarks. 



A CHAPTER ON ROSES. 29 

We thought some years ago that we had seen that ultima thxde 
— " a perfect rose." But we were mistaken ! Old associates, 
famihar names, and long cherished sorts have their proper hold on 
our affections ; but — we are bound to confess it — modern florists 
have coaxed and teased nature till she has given them roses more 
perfect in form, more airy, rich and brilliant in color, and more 
delicate and exquisite in perfume, than any that our grandfathers 
knew or dreamed of. And, more than all, they have produced 
roses — in abundance, as large and fi-agant as June roses — that 
blossom all the year round. If this unceasingly renewed perpetuity 
of charms does not complete the claims of the rose to infinity, as 
far as any plant can express that quality, then are we no metaphysician. 

There is certainly something instinctive and true in that fa- 
vorite fancy of the poets — that roses are the type or symbol of 
female loveliness — 

" Know you not our only 

Rival flower — the human ? 
Loveliest weight, on lightest foot — 

Joy-abundant woman," 

sings Leigh Hunt for the roses. And, we will add, it is striking 
and curious that refined and careful culture has the same effect on 
the outward conformation of the rose that it has on feminine beauty. 
The Tea and the Bourhon roses may be taken as an illustration of 
this. They are the last and finest product of the most perfect cul- 
ture of the garden ; and do they not, in their graceful airy forais, 
their subdued and bewitching odors, and tlieir refined and delicate 
colors, body forth the most perfect symbol of the most refined and 
cultivated Imogen or Ophelia that it is possible to conceive ? We 
claim the entire merit of pointing this out, and leave it for some poet 
to make himself immortal by ! 

There are odd, crotchety persons among horticulturists, who 
correspond to old bachelors in society, that are never satisfied to love 
any thing in particular, because they have really no affections of 
their own to fix upon any object, and who are always, for instance, 
excusing their want of devotion to the rose, under the pretence that 
among so many beautiful varieties it is impossible to choose. 



30 HORTICULTURE. 

Undoubtedly there is an embarras de richesses in the multitude 
of beautiful varieties that compose the groups and subdivisions of 
the rose family. So many lovely forms and colors are there, daz- 
zling the eye, and attracting the senses, that it requires a man or 
woman of nerve as well as taste, to decide and select. Some of the 
great rose-growers continually try to confuse the poor amateur by 
their long catalogues, and by their advertisements about " acres of 
roses." (Mr. Paul, an English nurseryman, published, in June last, 
that he had 70,000 plants in bloom at once !) This is puzzling 
enough, even to one that has his eyes wide open, and the sorts in 
full blaze of beauty before them. What, then, must be the quan- 
dary in which the novice, not yet introduced into the aristocracy of 
roses, whose knowledge only goes up to a " cabbage-rose," or a 
" maiden's blush," and who has in his hand a long list of some great 
collector — what, we say, must be his perplexity, when he suddenl}- 
finds amidst all the renowned names of old and new world's history, 
all the aristocrats and republicans, heroes and heroines of past and 
present times — Napoleon, Prince Esterhazy, Tippoo Saib, Semira- 
mis, Duchess of Sutherland, Princesse Clementine, with occasionally 
such touches of sentiment from the French rose-growers, as Souve- 
nir cfun Ami, or Nid d'' Amour (nest of love !) &c. &c. In this 
whirlpool of rank, fashion, and sentiment, the poor novitiate rose- 
hunter is likely enough to be quite wrecked ; and instead of look- 
ing out for a perfect rose, it is a thousand to one that he finds him- 
self confused amid the names of princes, princesses, and lovel}- 
duchesses, a vivid picture of whose charms rises to his imagination 
as he reads the brief words " pale flesh, wax-like, superb," or " large, 
perfect form, beautiful," or " pale blush, very pretty ;" so that it is 
ten to one that Duchesses, not Roses, are all the while at the bottom 
of his imagination ! 

Now, the only way to help the rose novices out of this difiiculty, 
is for all the initiated to confess their favorites. No doubt it will be a 
hard task for those who have had butterfly fancies, — coquetting first 
with one family and then with another. But we trust these horti- 
cultural flirts are rare among the more experienced of our garden- 
ing readers, — persons of sense, who have laid aside such follies, as 
only becoming to youthful and inexperienced amateurs. 



A CHAPTER ON ROSES. 31 

We have long ago invited our correspondents to send us their 
" confessions," which, if not as mysterious and fascinating as those 
of Rousseau, would be found far more innocent and wholesome to 
our readers. Mr. Buist (whose new nursery grounds, near Phila- 
delphia, have, we learn, been a paradise of roses this season), ha^ 
already sent us his list of favorites, which we have before made pub- 
lic, to the gi'eat satisfaction of many about to form little rose-gar- 
dens. Dr. Valk, also, has indicated his preferences. And to en- 
courage other devotees — more experienced than ourselves — we give 
our own list of favorites, as follows : 

First of all roses, then, in our estimation, stands the Bourbons 
(the only branch of the family, not repudiated by republicans). 
The most perpetual of all perpetuals, the most lovely in form, of all 
colors, and many of them of the richest fragrance ; and, for us 
northerners, most of all, hardy and easi ly cultivated^ we cannot but 
give them the first rank. Let us, then, say — 

HALF A DOZEN BOURBON ROSES. 

Souvenir de Malmaison, pale flesh colcyr. 

Paul Joseph, puriMsh crimson. 

Hermosa, deep rose. 

Queen, delicate fawn color. 

Dupetit Thouars, changeable carmine. 

Acidalie, white. 

Souvenir de Malmaison is, take it altogether, — its constant 
blooming habit, its large size, hardiness, beautiful form, exquisite 
color, and charming fragrance, — our favorite rose ; the rose which, 
if we should be condemned to that hard penance of cultivating but 
oi>e variety, our choice would immediately settle upon. Its beauty 
suggests a blending of the finest sculpture and the loveliest femi- 
nine complexion. 

Second to the Bourbons, we rank the Remontantes, as the 
French term them ; a better name than the English one — perpe- 
tuals ; for they are by no means perpetual in their blooming habit, 
when compared with the Bourbons, China, or Tea roses. They are, 
in fact, June roses, that bloom two or three times in the season, 



32 HORTICULTURE. 

whenever strong new shoots spring up ; hence, no name so appro- 
priate as Remontante^ — sending up new flowei- shoots. We think 
this class of roses has been a Httle overrated by rose-growers. Its 
great merit is the true, old-fashioned rose character of the blossoms, 
— large and fragrant as a damask or Provence rose. But in this 
climate, Remontmites cannot be depended on for a constant supply 
of floAvers, like Bourbon roses. Here are our favorite : 

HALF A DOZEN REMONTANTES. 

La Reine, deep rose, very large. 
Duchess of Sutherland, pale rose. 
Crimson Perpetual, light crimson. 
Aubernon, brilliant crimson. 
Lady Alice Peel, fine deep pink. 
Madame Dameme, darh crimson. 

Next to these come the China Roses, less fragrant, but everlast- 
ingly in bloom, and with very bright and rich colors. 

HALF A DOZEN CHINA ROSES. 

Mrs. Bosanquet, exquisite pale fiesh color, 

Madame Breon, rose. 

Eugene Beauharnais, bright crimson. 

Clara Sylvain, pure white. 

Cramoisie Supericure, brilliant crimson. 

Virginale, blush. 

The Tea Roses, most refined of all roses, unluckily, require 
considerable shelter and care in winter, in this climate ; but they so 
richly repay all, that no rose-lover can grudge them this trouble. 
Tea roses are, indeed, to the common garden varieties what the 
finest porcelain is to vulgar crockery ware. 

HALF A DOZEN TEA ROSES. 

Safrano, the buds rich deep fawn. 

Souvenir d'un Ami, salmon, shaded with rose. 

Goubault, hight rose, large and fragrant. 



A CHAPTER ON ROSES. 33 

Devoniensis, creamy white, 

Bougere, (/lossy bronze. 

Josephine Malton, beautiful shaded white. 

We thought to give Noisettes the go-by ; but the saucy, ram- 
pant httle beauties climb up and thiaist their clusters of bright blos- 
soms into our face, and will be heard. So here they are : 

HALF A DOZEN NOISETTES. 

Solfaterre, bright sulphur, large. 

Jaune Desprez, large bright fawn. 

Cloth of Gold, pure yellow, fine. 

Aimee Vibert, pwre white, very free bloomer. 

Fellenberg, brilliant crimson. 

Joan of Arc, pure %uhite. 

" Girdle of Venus ! does he call this a select list ?" exclaims 
some leveller, who expected us to compress all rose perfections into 
half a dozen sorts ; when here we find, on looking back, that we 
have thirty, and even then, there is not a single moss rose, climbing- 
rose, Provence rose, damask rose, to say nothing of " musk roses," 
" microphylla roses," and half a dozen other divisions that we boldly 
shut oui- eyes upon ! Well, if the truth must come out, we confess 
it boldly, that we are worshippers of the EVERBLOOMiNa roses. 
Compared with them, beautiful as all other roses may be and are 
(we can't deny it), they have little chance of favor with those that 
we have named, which are a perpetual garland of sweetness. It is 
the diiference between a smile once a year, and a golden temper, al- 
ways sweetness and sunshine. W'hy, the everblooming roses make 
a garden of themselves ! Not a day without rich colors, delicious 
perfume, luxuriant foliage. No, take the lists as they are — too 
small by half ; for we cannot cut a name out of them. 

And yet, there are a few other roses that ought to be in the 
smallest collection. That finest of all rose-gems, the Old Red Moss, 
still at the head of all moss roses, and its curious cousin, the Crested 
Moss, must have their place. Those fine hardy chmbers, that m 
northern gardens will grow in any exposure, and cover the highest 
3 



34 HORTICULTURE. 

walls or trellises with gai'lantls of beauty, — the Queen of the Prai- 
ries and Baltimore Belle (or, for southern gardens, say — Laure Da- 
ooust, and Greville, and Raga Arjrshire) ; that finest and richest 
(jf all yellow roses, the double Persian Yellow, and half a dozen of 
the gems among the hybrid roses, such as ChinMole, George the 
Fourth, Village Maid, Great Western, Fulgeus, Blanchefleur ; we 
should try, at least, to make room for these also. 

If we were to have but three roses, for our own personal gratifi- 
cation, they would be — 

Souvenir de Malmaison, 
Old Bed Moss, 
Gen. Duhourg. 

The latter is a Bourbon rose, which, because it is an old variety, 
and not very double, lias gone out of fashion. We, however, shall 
• •ultivate it as long as we enjoy the blessing of olfactory nerves ; for 
it gives us, all the season, an abundance of flowers, with the most 
perfect rose scent that we have ever yet found ; in fact, the true 
attar of Bose. 

There ai'e few secrets in the cultivation of the rose in this 
<-iimate. First of all, make the soil deej) ; and, if the subsoil is not 
<|uite dry, let it be Avell drained. Then remember, that what the 
rose delights to grow in is loa^n and rotten manure. Enrich your 
soil, therefore, witli well-decomposed stable manure ; and if it is 
too sandy, mix fresh loam from an old i^asture field ; if it is too 
clayey, mix river or pit sand with it. The most perfect specific 
stimulus that we have ever tried in the culture of the rose, is 
what Mr. Rivers calls roasted turf, which is easily made by paring 
sods from the lane sides, and half charring them. It acts like 
magic upon the little spongioli:^s of the rose ; making new buds and 
fine fi-esh foliage start out very speedily, and then a succession of 
superb and richly colored flowers. We commend it, especiall}-, to 
all those who cultivate roses in old gardens, where the soil is more 
or less worn out. 

And now, like the Persians, with the hope that our fair read- 
ers " may sleep upon roses, and the dew that fells may turn into 
rose-water," we must end this i-ather prolix chapter upon roses. 



VI. 



A CHAPTER ON GREEN-HOUSES. 

December, 1848. 

DECEMBER, here iu the north, is certainly a cold month. Yes, 
one does not look for primroses under the hedges, nor gather 
violets in the valleys, often, at this season. One must be content to 
enjoy a bright sky over head, and a frosty walk under foot ; one 
must find pleasure in the anatomy of trees, and the grand outline of 
hills and mountains half covered with snow. And then, to be sure, 
there are the evergreens. What a pleasant thing it is to see how 
bravely they stand their ground, and bid defiance even to zero ; 
especially those two fine old veterans, the Hemlock and the White 
Pine. They, indeed, smile defiance at all the attacks of the Ice 
King. It is not easy to make a winter landscape dull or gloomy 
where they stand, ready as they are at all times with such a sturdy 
look of wholesome content in every bough. 

That must be an insipid climate, depend upon it, where there is 
*' summer all the year round." In an ideal point of view, — that is, 
for angels and " beatitudes " — it is, nay, it must be, quite perfect. 
Their sensations never wear out. But to us, poor mortals, com- 
pounded as we are of such a moiety of clay, and alas, too many of 
us full of inconstancy, — always demanding variety — always looking 
for a change — wearying, as the angels do not, of things which ought 
to satisfy any reasonable creature for ever ; no, even perpetual sum- 
mer will not do for us. Winter, keen and frosty winter, comes to 
brace up our languid nerves. It acts like a long night's sleep, after 



36 HORTICULTURE. 

a day foil of exciting events. Spring comes back again to us like a 
positively new miracle ! To vpatcli all these black and leafless trees 
suddenly become draped with green again, to see the ice-bound and 
snow-clad earth, now so dead and cold, absolutely bud and grow 
warm with new life, — that, certainly, is a joy which never animates 
the soul of our fellow-beings of the equator. 

" But the winter, the long winter — without verdure — without 
foliage — without flowers — all so bleak and barren." Softly, warm 
weather friend, open this little glazed door, out of the parlor, even 
now, while the icicles hang from the eaves, and what do you see ? 
Truly a cheering and enlivening prospect, we think ; a little minia- 
ture tropical scene, separated from the outer frost-world only by a 
few panes of glass, and yet as gay and blooming as the valley of 
Cashmere in June. What can be purer than these pure, spotless 
double white, — what richer than these rich, parti-colored Camel- 
lias ? What more delicate than these Heaths, with their little fairy - 
like bells ? AVhat more fresh and airy than these Azaleas ? What 
more delicious than these Daphnes, and Neapolitan Violets ? Why, 
one can spend an hour here, every day, in studying these curious 
and beautiful strangers — belles of other climes, that turn winter into 
summer, to repay us for a little warmth and shelter. Is there not 
something exciting and gTatifying in this little spectacle of our tri- 
umph of art over nature ? this holding out a little garden of the 
most delicate plants in the very face of winter, stern as he is, and 
bidding him defiance to his teeth ? Truly yes ; and therefore, to one 
who has enough of vegetable sympathy in his nature to love flowei-s 
with all his or her heart — to love them enouo-h to watch over them, 
to care for all their wants, and to feel an absolute thrill of joy a.s 
the first delicate bit of color mounts into the cheek of every blushing 
bud as it is about to burst open, — to such of our readers, we say, a 
GREEN-HOUSE is a great comfort and consolation ! 

There are many of our readers who enjoy the luxury of green- 
houses, hot-houses, and conservatories, — large, beautifully construct- 
ed, heated with hot water pipes, paved with marble, and filled with 
every rare and beautiful exotic worth ha\ing, from the birdlike aii 
plants of Guiana to the jewel-like Fuchsias of Mexico. They have 
taste, and much " money in their purses." They want no advice 





v^^a^^sm 



z^fei 



— K > y'^^'^i-^^^,^^. 



'm^vMtymv^.y^.v/WM'//^MmMM//m 



^^/i>X : 






A CHAPTER ON GREEN-HOUSES. 37 

fiom us ; they have only to say " let us have green-houses," and they 
have them. 

But we have also other readers, many thousands of them, who 
have quite as much natural taste, and not an hundi-edth part as much 
of the " needful " with which to gratify it. Yes, many, who look 
upon a green-house as a sort of crystal palace, which it requires a 
great deal of skill to construct, and untold wealth to pay for and 
keep in order. The little conversation that we hold to-day must be 
considered as addressed to this latter class ; and we don't propose to 
show even them, how to build a green-house for nothing, — but how 
it may be built cheaply, and so simply that it is not necessary to 
send for the architect of Trinity Church to give them a plan for its 
construction. 

The idea that comes straightway into one's head, when a gi-een- 
house is mentioned, is something with a half roof stuck against a 
wall, and glazed all over, — what gardeners call a lean-to or shed- 
roofed green-house. This is a very good form where economy alone 
is to be thought of ; but not in the least Avill it please the eye of 
taste. We dislike it, because there is something incomplete about 
it ; it is, in fact, only half a green-house. 

We must have, then, the idea, in a complete form, by having 
the whole roof — what in garden architecture is called a " span-roof" — 
which, indeed, is nothing more than the common form of the roof 
of a house, sloping both ways from the ridge pole to the eaves. 

A green-house may be of any size, from ten to as many hundred 
feet ; but let us now, for the sake of having something definite be- 
fore us, choose to plan one 15 by 20 feet. We will suppose it at- 
tached to a cottage in the country, extending out 20 feet, either on 
the south, or the east, or the west side ; for, though the south is 
the best aspect, it will do in this bright and sunny climate very well 
in either of the others, provided it is fully exposed to the sun, and 
not concealed by trees at the sunny time of day. 

Taking fig. 2 as the ground-plan, you will see that by cutting 
down the window in the parlor, so as to make a glazed door of it, 
you have the opening precisely where you want it for convenience, 
and exactly where there will be a fine vista down the walk as you 
sit in the parlor. Now, by having this house a little wider than 



38 



HORTICULTURE. 



usuul, with an open roof, our plants have the light on all sides ; con- 
sequently they are never drmon. Besides this, instead of a single 
walk down the front of the house, at the end of which you are forced 
to wheel about, like a grenadier, and return ; you have the agreea- 
ble variety of making the entire circuit of the house, reaching the 
same spot again, with something new before you at every step. 
This walk is 2^ feet wide. The stage for the tall plants is a paral- 
lelogram, in the middle of the house, c, 7 feet wide ; the shelf, which 
borders the margin of the house, rf, is about 18 inches wide. This 
will hold all the small pots, the more delicate growing plants, the 
winter-flowering bulbs, and all those little favorites which of them- 
selves like best to be near the light, and which one likes to have 
near the eye. It is quite incredible what a number of dozen of 
small plants this single shelf, running nearly all round, will hold. 






w 



i 

i 




WALK. 







Fig. 2. - Plan of a small Green-IIouse. 



Now let us take a glance at the plan of the .sv clion of the green- 
house, fig. 3, which may be supposed to be a slice down through 
the end of it. The sides of the house are 8 feet high. They con- 
sist of a row of sashes (/), 3^ feet high, placed just below the plate 
that supports the roof, and a wall, A, on which these sashes stand. 
This may be a wall of brick or stone (if of the former, 8 inches 



A CHAPTER ON GKEEN-HOUSES. 



39 




Fio. 3. Section of the Same. 



thick is suflficient) ; or 
it may, when it is to 
be attached to a wood- 
en dwelling, be built 
of wood — good cedar 
l)0sts being set as sup- 
ports 3 1 feet deep, and 
lined with weather- 
boarding on each — 
side, leaving a space 
of 12 inches wide, to 
be filled very com- 
pactly with charcoal dust, or dry tan. 

At the farther end of the house is a dooi', i. 

The roof may rise in the middle so as to be from 12 to 15 feet 
high (in our plan, it is shown 12 feet). It is wholly glazed, — the 
sashes on either side sliding down in the rafters, so as to admit air 
when necessary. The rafters themselves to be placed about 4 feet 
apart. Is it not a neat little green-house — this structure that we 
have conjured up before you ? It is particularly light and airy ; and 
do you not observe that the great charm about it is, that every plant 
is within reach — always inviting attention, always ready to be en- 
joyed ? Truly, it is not like those tall houses, with stages running 
up like stairs, entirely out of the reach of one's nose, arms or fingers. 
Do you not see, also, that you can very well water and take care of 
every plant yourself, if you are really fond of such things ? Very 
well ; now let us look a little into the way in which we are to keep 
this little place of pleasure always warm and genial for the plants 
themselves. 

In the first place, we must inform our reader that we are not to 
have either a furnace with brick flues, or a boiler with hot water 
pipes. They are both excellent things ; but we must have, at pre- 
sent, something simpler and more economical. 

Every body, in the northern States, very well knows what an air- 
tiyht stove is; a most complete and capital little machine, whether 
for wood or coal ; most easily managed, and giving us almost the 
whole possible amount of caloric to be got out of hickory or anthracite. 



40 HORTICULTURE. 

Now we mean to lieat our little greeu-house with an air-tight stove, 
of good size ; and we mean to heat it, too, in the latest and most 
apjjroved system — nothing less than what the English call Pohnaise 
— by which we are able to warm every part of the house alike ; by 
which we shall be able to create a continual circulation of the warm 
air from one end of it, quite over the plants, to the other ; and 
which, no doubt, they will mistake for a West India current of air 
every evening. 

In order to bring this about, we must have an air-chamber. This 
also must be below the level of the green-house floor. It is not im- 
portant under what part it is placed ; it may be built wherever it is 
most convenient. In our plan [fig. 2), as there is a cellar under 
the parlor, we will put it next the cellar wall, so that there may be 
a door to enter it fi-om this cellar. This air-chamber must be built 
(jf brick, say about 7 or 8 feet square (as represented by the dotted 
lines around b). The wall of this air-chamber should be two bricks 
thick at the sides and one brick at the ends, and all smoothly plas- 
tered on the inside. The top should be covered with large flagging 
stones ; and upon the top of these, a course of bricks should be laid, 
which "will form part of the floor of the walk in the green-house 
above. Or, if flagging is not to be had, then cover the whole with 
a low arch of brick work. 

In this air-chamber we will place our air-tight stove, the smoke 
pipe of which must be brought back into the cellar again, so as to be 
carried into one of the chimney flues of the house. There must be 
a large sheet-iron or cast-iron door to the air-chamber, to enable us 
to feed the fire in the stove ; and, in the top or covering of the aii-- 
i-hamber, directly in the middle of the walk (at l), must be an 
opening 18 inches in diameter, covered with a grating, or register. 
Through this the hot air will rise into the house. 

Now, both that we may heat -the house easily and quickly, and 
also that we may have that continual circulation of air which is so 
wholesome for the plants, we must also have what is called a " cold- 
uir drain ;" it must lead from that end of the house farthest from 
the hot-air chamber, and therefore the coldest end, directly to the bot- 
tom of the air-chamber itself We will put the mouth of this drain in 
the middle of tht^ \\alk iieai- the door, at 2, with a grating over it 



A CHAPTER ON GREEN-HOUSES. 41 

also. This drain shall be simply a long box, made of boards ; and 
we ■will have it 1 foot by 2 feet, inside. From the mouth, 2, it shall 
lead along, in a straight line, just below the level of the floor, to B, 
where it descends so as to enter on a level with the floor of the hot- 
air chamber. We will also have a smaller box, or drain, for fresh 
air, leading from the bottom of the air-chamber to the open aii' 
through the foundation wall, at 4, to supply the house with fresli 
air. This air-pipe should be six inches in diameter, and there 
should be a slide in it to enable us to shut it up, whenever the 
weather is too cold to admit of its being open, without lowering the 
temperature of the house too much. 

Now let us suppose all is ready, and that a fire is lighted in our 
air-tight stove. The air in the air-chamber becoming heated, it 
rises rapidly and passes into the green-house through the grated 
opening at 1. .Very quickly, then, in order to supply the deficiency 
caused in the air-chamber, the air rushes through the cold-air drain. 
This makes a current from the coolest part of the house, at 2 , towards 
the air-chamber ; and, to make good again the lost air carried oft" 
from that end of the house, the warm stream which rises through 
the opening at 1, immediately flows over the tops of the plants to- 
wards the opposite end of the house, and, as it becomes cold again, 
descends and enters the mouth of the cold-air drain, at 2, By taking 
advantage of this simple and beautiful principle, that is to say the 
rising of warm air, we are able in this way to heat every part 
of the house alike, and have a constant bland zephyr passing over 
the plants.* 

It is not easy to find any thing simpler or more easily managed 
than this way of heating a small green-house. In this latitude, a 
couple of cords of wood oi- a couple of tons of anthracite, will be 
sufficient for the whole winter ; for, it must be remembered, that no 
matter how cold the day, the moment the sun shines there is not 
the slightest need of a fire ; the temperature will then immediately 
begin to rise. Usually after bright days, which are abundant in 
our coldest winter months, we shall not need to light a fire till one, 

* When a coal air-tiglit stove is used, there should be a water pan sus- 
pended over it. For a wood air-tight it is not necessary. 



42 HORTICULTURK. 

two, or sometimes three hours after sunset ; and if our air-tight is> 
one of good size, and constructed as it should be, so as to maintain 
a good fire for a long time, our last replenishing in the evening need 
not usually be later than ten o'clock ; but we must, in this case, give 
H full supply of fuel for the night's consumption. 

Every sensible person will, of course, use light outside shutters, 
for the roof and side glass of such a house as this. We slide them 
on at sunset, and take them ofi^ at sunrise ; and by this means we 
not only save one-third of our fuel, but keep up a pleasant green- 
house temperature, without cold draughts at night. It is worth 
while to remember, too, that in glazing the roof, the most useful 
possible size for the glass is 4 by 6 inches, or, at the largest, 6 by 8 
inches. The former answers the purpose perfectly, and is not only 
much less costly than large glass, but is also far less expensive to 
keep in repair ; neither hail nor frost breaking the small panes, 
as they do the large ones. 

As to the minor details, we will have a small cistern under the 
floor, into which the water from the roof can be conveyed for water- 
ing the plants. Beneath the centre stage (which may be partly 
concealed with lattice work), we may keep our dahlia roots, and a 
dozen other sorts of half hardy plants for the summer border, now 
dormant, and snugly packed quite out of sight. 

We did intend, when we sat down, to give our novices a great deal 
of exceedingly valuable advice about the sorts of plants that they ought 
to cultivate in this glazed flower-garden. But we see that we are 
getting beyond the limits of a leader, and must not, therefore, weary 
those of our subscribers, who take no more interest in geraniums 
than we do in Irish landlords, with too long a j^arley on exotics. 

We must have space enough, however, for a word or two more 
to beginners. Let them take our word for it — if they prefer an 
abundance of beautiful flowers to a pot-2iourri^ of every imaginable 
species that can be grown under glass, they had better confine them- 
selves to a few really worthy and respectable genera. If they onlj- 
want winter-blooming plants, then let them take Camellias and Chi- 
nese Azaleas, as the groundwork of their collection, filling in the 
interstices with daphnes, heaths, sweet-soented violets, and choice 



A CHAPTER ON GKEEN-HOUSES. 43 

bulbs. For the spring, i-ely on everblooming roses,* ana geraniums. 
If they also wish to have the green-house gay in summer, they must 
shade it (or wash the under side of the roof-glass with whiting), and 
grow Fuchsias and Achimenes. In this way, they will never be 
without flowers in abundance, while their neighbors, who collect 
every new thing to be heard of under the sun, will have more tall 
stalks and meagre foliage, than bright blossoms and odorous bouquets 
for their trouble. 

* Nothing is more satisfactory than those fine Noisette roses, the La- 
7narque and Cloth of Gold, planted in an inside border, and trained up 
under the rafters of the green-house. In this way they grow to great size, 
and give a profusion of coses. 



VII. 

ON FEMININE TASTE IN RURAL AFFAIRS. 

April, 1849. 
IT7"HAT a very little tact sometimes betrays the national charac- 
» V ter ; and what an odd thing this national character is ! Look 
at a Frenchman. He eats, talks, lives in public. He is only happy 
when he has spectators. In town, on the boulevards, in the cafe, at 
places of public amusement, he is all enjoyment. But in the 
country — ah, there he never goes willingly ; or else, he only goes 
to sentimentalize, or to entertain his town friends. Even the natural 
born country people seem to find nature and solitude ennuyant, 
and so collect in little villages to keep each other in spirits ! The 
Frenchman eats and sleeps almost any where ; but he is never " at 
home but when he is abroad." 

Look, on the other hand, at John Bull. He only lives what he 
feels to be a rational life, when he lives in the country. His country 
place is to him a little Juan Fernandez island ; it contains his own 
family, his own castle, every thing that belongs to him. He hates 
the smoke of town ; he takes root in the soil. His horses, his dogs, 
his trees, are not separate existences ; they are parts of himself. 
He is social with a reservation. Nature is nearer akin to him than 
strange men. His dogs are truly attached to him ; he doubts if his 
fellows are. People often play the hypocrite ; but the trees in 
his park never deceive him. Home is to him the next best place 
to heaven. 

And only a little narrow strait of water divides these two 
nations ! 



ON FEMININE TASTE IN RURAL AFFAIRS. 45 

Shall we ever have a distinct national character ? Will a 
country, which is settled by every people of the old world, — a dozen 
nations, all as distinct as the French and the English, — ever crys- 
tallize into a symmetrical form — something distinct and homoge- 
neous ? And what will that national character be ? 

Certainly no one, who looks at our comparative isolation — at 
the broad ocean that separates us from such external influences — 
at the mighty internal forces of new government and new circum- 
stances, which continually act upon us, — and, above all, at the 
mighty vital force of the Yankee Constitution, which every year 
swallows hundreds of thousands of foreigners, and digests them all ; 
no one can look reflectingly on all this, and not see that there is 
a national type, which will prevail over all the complexity, which 
various origin, foreign manners, and different religions bring to our 
shores. 

The English are, perhaps, the most distinct of civilized nations, 
in their nationality. But they had almost as mixed an origin as 
ourselves, — Anglo-Saxon, Celts, Roman, Danish, Norman ; all these 
apparently discordant elements, were fused so successfully into a 
great and united people. 

That a hundred years hence will find us quite as distinct and 
quite as developed, in our national character, we cannot doubt. 
What that character will be, in all its phases, no one at present can 
precisely say ; but that the French and English elements will largely 
influence it in its growth, and yet, that in morals, in feeling, and in 
heart, we shall be entirely distinct from either of those nations, is as 
clear to us as a summer noon. 

We are not going into a profound philosophical dissertation on 
the political or the social side of national character. We want to 
touch very slightly on a curious little jDoint that interests us ; one 
that political philosophers would think quite beneath them ; one 
that moralists would not trouble themselves about ; and one that 
we are very much afraid nobody else will think worth notice at all ; 
;jnd therefore we shall set about it directly. 

What is the reason American ladies donH love to work in their 
gardens ? 

It is of no use whatever, that some fifty or a hundred of our fair 



46 HORTICULTURE. 

readers say, " we do." We have carefully studied the matter, until 
it has become a fact past all contradiction. They may love to 
" potter " a little. Three or four times in the spring they take a 
fancy to examine the color of the soil a few inches below the sur- 
face ; they sow some China Asters, and plant a few Dahlias, and it 
is all over. Love flowers, with all their hearts, they certainly di>. 
Few things are more enchanting to them than a fine garden ; and 
bouquets on their centre tables are positive necessities, with every 
lady, from Maine to the Rio Grande. 

Now, we certainly have all the love of nature of our English 
forefathers. We love the country; and a large part of the mil- 
lions, earned every year by our enterprise, is spent in creating and 
embellishing country homes. But, on the contrary, our wives and 
daughters only love gardens as the French love them — for the 
results. They love to walk through them ; they enjoy the beauty 
and perfume of their products, but only as amateurs. They know 
no more of that intense enjoyment of her who plans, creates, and 
daily watches the growth of those gardens or flowers, — no more of 
that absolute, living enjoyment, which the English have in out-of- 
door pursuits, than a mere amateur, who goes through a fine gal- 
lery of pictures, knows of the intensified emotions which the painters 
of those pictures experienced in their souls, Avhen they gazed on the 
gradual growth and perfected splendor of their finest master-pieces. 

As it is plain, from our love of the country, that we are not French 
at heart, this manifestation that we complain of, must come from 
our natural tendency to copy the social manners of the most 
polished nation in the world. And it is indeed quite wondeiful 
how, being scarcely in the least affected by the morale, we still bor- 
row almost instinctively, and entirely without being aware of it, so 
much from la Belle France. That our dress, mode of life, and in- 
tercourse, is largely tinged wdth French taste, every traveller notices. 
But it goes farther. Even the plans of our houses become more and 
more decidedly French. We have had occasion, lately, to make 
considerable explorations in the domestic architecture of France and 
England, and we have noticed some striking national peculiarities. 
One of these relates to the connection of the principal apartments. 
In a French house, the beau ideal is to have every thing ensuite ; 



ON FEMININE TASTE IN RURAL AFFAIRS. 47 

all the rooms open into each other ; or, at least, as many of the 
largest as will produce a fine effect. In an English house, every 
I'oom is complete in itself. It may be very large, and very grand, 
but it is all the worse for being connected with any other room ; for 
that destroys the ^^I'ivacy which an Englishman so much loves. 

Does any one, familiar with the progress of building in the 
United States for the last ten years, desire to be told which mode 
we have followed? And yet, there are very few who are aware 
that our love of folding-doors, and suites of apartments, is essen- 
tially French. 

Now our national taste in gardening and out-door employments, 
is just in the process of formation. Honestly and ardently be- 
lieving that the loveliest and best women in the world are those of 
our own country, we cannot think of their losing so much of tlieir 
own and nature's bloom, as only to enjoy their gardens by the 
results, like the French, rather than through the development, like 
the English. We would gladly show them how much they lose. 
We would convince them, that only to pluck the full-blown flower, 
is like a first introduction to it, compared with the life-long friend- 
ship of its mistress, who has nursed it from its first two leaves ; and 
that the real zest of our enjoyment of nature, even in a garden, lies 
in our looking at her, not like a spectator who admires, but like a 
dear and intimate friend, to whom, after long intimacy, she reveals 
.sweets wholly hidden from those who only come to her in full drees, 
and in the attitude of formal visitors. 

If any one wishes to know how completely and intensely Eng- 
lish women enter into the spirit of gardening, he has only to watch 
the wife of the most humble artisan who settles in any of our cities. 
She not only has a pot of flowers — her back-yard is a perfect curi- 
osity-shop of botanical rarities. She is never done with training, 
and watering, and caring for them. And truly, they reward her 
well ; for who ever saw such large geraniums, such fresh daisies, 
such I'uddy roses ! Comparing them with the neglected and weak 
specimens in the garden of her neighbor, one might be tempted t<i 
believe that they had been magnetized by the charm of personal 
fondness of their mistress, into a life and beauty not common to 
other plants. 



48 HORTICULTURE. 

Mr. Colman, in his European Tour, seems to have been struck 
by this trait, and gave so capital a portrait of i-ural accomplish- 
ments in a lady of rank he had the good fortune to meet, that we 
cannot resist the temptation of turning the picture to the light ono<; 
more : 

" I had no sooner, then, entered the house, where my visit had been 
expected, than I was met with an unaffected cordiality, which at once 
made me at home. In the midst of gilded halls, and hosts of liveried 
servants, of dazzling lamps and glittering mirrors, redoubling the high- 
est triumphs of art and of taste ; in the midst of books, and statues. 
and pictures, and all the elegancies and refinements of luxury ; in the 
midst of titles, and dignitaries, and ranks allied to regal grandeur, — 
there was one object which transcended and eclipsed them all, and 
showed how much the nobility of character surpassed the nobility of 
rank, the beauty of refined and simple manners all the adornments of 
art, the scintillations of the soul, beaming from the eyes, the purest 
gems that ever glittered in a princely diadem. In person, in education 
and improvement, in quickness of perception, in facility and elegance of 
expression, in accomplishments and taste, in a frankness and gentleness 
of manner, tempered by a modesty which courted confidence and in- 
spired respect, and in a high moral tone and sentiment, which, like a 
bright halo, seemed to encircle the whole person, — I confess the fictions 
of poetry became substantial, and the heau ideal of my youtliful imagi- 
nation was realized. 

" In the morning I first met her at prayers ; for, to the honor of 
England, there is scarcely a family, among the hundreds whose hospi- 
tality I have shared, where the duties of the day are not preceded b}' 
family worship ; and the master and the servant, the parent and the 
child, the teacher and the taught, the friend and the stranger, come to- 
gether to recognize and strengthen the sense of their common equality, 
in the presence of their common Father, and to acknowledge their equal 
dependence upon his care and mercy. She was then kind enough to 
tell me, after her morning's arrangements, she claimed me for the daj-. 
She first showed me her children, whom, like the Koman mother, she 
deemed her brightest jewels, and arranged their studies and occupations 
for the day. She then took me two or three miles on foot, to visit a 
sick neighbor ; and, while performing this act of kindness, left me to 
visit some of the cottages upon the estate, whose inmates I found loud 
in the praises of her kindness and benefactions. Our next excursion 



ON FEMININE TASTE IN RURAL AFFAIRS. 49 

was to see some of the finest, and largest, and most aged trees in the 
park, the size of which was trulj^ magnificent ; and I sympathized in 
the veneration which she expressed for them, which was like that with 
which one recalls the illustrious memory of a remote progenitor. Our 
next visit was to the green-houses and gardens ; and she explained to 
me the mode adopted there, of managing the most delicate plants, and 
of cultivating, in the most economical and successful manner, the fruits 
of a warmer region. From the garden we proceeded to the cultivated 
fields ; and she informed me of the sj'stem of husbandry pursued on 
the estate, the rotation of crops, the management and application of 
manures, the amount of seed sown, the ordinary yield, and the appro- 
priation of the produce, with a perspicuous detail of the expenses and 
results. She then undertook to show me the yards and offices, the 
byres, the feeding stalls, the plans for saving, increasing, and managing 
the manure ; the cattle for feeding, for breeding, the milking stock, the 
piggery, the poultry-yard, the stables, the harness-rooms, the implement- 
rooms, the dairy. She explained to me the process of making the dif- 
ferent kinds of cheese, and the general management of the milk, and 
the mode of feeding the stock ; and then, conducting me into the bailiff's 
house, she exhibited to me the Farm Journal, and the whole systematic 
mode of keeping the accounts and making the returns, with which she 
seemed as familiar as if they were the accounts of her own wardrobe. 
This did not finish our grand tour ; for, on my return, she admitted me 
into her boudoir, and showed me the secrets of her own admirable 
housewifery, in the exact accounts which she kept of every thing con- 
nected with the dairy, the market, the table, and the drawing-room, and 
the servants' hall. All this was done with a simplicity and a frank- 
ness, which showed an absence of all consciousness of any extraordi- 
nary merit in her own department, and which evidently sprang solely 
from a kind desire to gratify a curiosity on my part, which, I hope, un- 
der such circumstances, was not unreasonable. 

"A short hour after this brought us into another relation ; for the 
dinner bell summoned us, and this same lady was found presiding over 
a brilUant circle of the highest rank and fashion, with an ease, elegance, 
wit, intelligence, and good humor, with a kind attention to everj'' one's 
wants, and an unaffected concern for every one's comfort, which would lead 
one to suppose that this was her only and her peculiar sphere. Now I 
will not say how many mud-puddles we had waded through, and how 
many manure heaps we had crossed, and what places we had explored, 
and how every farming topic was discussed ; but I will say that she 
pursued her object without any of that fastidiousness and affected deli- 
. 4 



50 HORTICULTURE. 

cacy, which pass with some persons for refinement, but which, in many 
cases, indicate a weak, if not a corrupt mind. * * * * 

" Now I do not say that the lady to whom I have referred was her- 
self the manager of the farm ; that rested entirely with her husband ; 
but I have intended simply to show how gratifying to him must have 
been the lively interest and sympathy which she took in concerns which 
necessarily so much engaged his time and attention ; and how the coun- 
try would be divested of that dulness and ennui, so often complained 
of as inseparable from it, when a cordial and practical interest is taken 
in the concerns which belong to rural life. I meant' also to .show — and 
this and many other examples, which have come under my observation, 
emphatically do show — that an interest in, and familiarity with, even 
the most humble occupations of agricultural life, are not inconsistent 
with the highest refinements of taste, the most improved cultivation of 
the mind, and elegance, and dignity of manners, unsurpassed in the 
highest circles of societjr." 

This picture is thoroughly English ; and who do our readers 
suppose this lady was ? Mr. Colman puts his finger on his lips, and 
declares that however much he may be questioned by his fair readers 
at home, he will make no disclosures. But other people recognize 
the portrait ; and we understand it is that of the Duchess of Port- 
land. 

Now, as a contrast to this, here is a little fragment — a mere bit 
— but enough to show the French feeling about country life. It is 
from one of Madame de Sevigne's charming letters ; and, fond of 
society as she was, she certainly had as much of love of the coun- 
try as belongs to her class and sex on her side of the channel. It is 
part of a letter written from her country home. She is writing to 
her daughter, and speaking of an expected visit from one of her 
friends : 

" It follows that, after I have been to see her, she will come to see 
me, when, of course, I shall wish her to find my garden in good order ; 
my walks in good order — those fine walks, of which you are so fond. 
Attend also, if you please, to a little suggestion en passant. You are 
aware that haymaking is going forward. Well, I have no haymakers. 
I send into the neighboring fields to press them into Vl\y service ; there 
are none to be found ; and so all my own people are summoned to make 



ON FEMININE TASTE IN RURAL AFFAIRS. 51 

hay instead. But do you know what haymaking is ? I will tell you. 
Haymaking is the prettiest thing in the world. You play at turning 
the grass over in a meadow ; and as soon as you know that, you 
know how to make hay.'''' 

Is it not capital ? We italicize her description of haymaking, 
it is so Frangaise, and so totally unlike the account that the Duchess 
would have given Mr. Colman. Her garden, too ; she wanted to 
have it ^ra/ in order before her friend arrived. She would have 
shown it, not as an English woman would have done, to excite an 
interest in its rare and beautiful plants, and the perfection to which 
they had grown under her care, but that it might give her fi-iend a 
pleasant promenade. 

Now we have not the least desire, that American wives and 
daughters should have any thing to do with the rough toil of the 
farm or the garden, beyond their own household province. We de- 
light in the chivalry which pervades this whole country, in regard 
to the female character, and which even foreigners have remarked 
as one of the strongest national characteristics.* But we would 
gladly have them seize on that happy medium, between the English 
passion for every thing out of doors, and the French taste for nothing 
beyond the drawing-room. Every thing which relates to the gar- 
den, the lawn, the pleasure-grounds, should claim their immediate 
interest. And this, not merely to walk out occasionally and enjoy 
it ; but to know it by heart ; to do it, or see it all done ; to know 

* jVL Chevalier, oue of the most intelligent of recent French travellers, 
says, in his work on this country — "Not only does the American mechanic 
and farmer relieve, as much as possible, his wife from all severe labor, all 
disagreeable employments, but there is also, in relation to them, and to 
women in general, a disposition to oblige, that is unknown among us, even 
in men who pique themselves upon cultivation of mind and literary educa- 
tion." ******* 

" We buy our wives with our fortunes, or we sell ourselves to them for 
their dowries. The American chooses her, or rather he offers himself to her 
for her beauty, her intelligence, and the qualities of her heart ; it is the 
only dowry which he seeks. Thus, while we make of tliat which is most 
sacred a matter of business, these traders affect a delicacy, and an elevation 
of sentiment, which would have done honor to the most perfect models of 
chivalry." 



52 HORTICULTURE. 

the history of any plant, shrub, or tree, from the time it was so 
small as to be invisible to all but their eyes, to the time when ever}- 
passer-by stops to admire and enjoy it ; to live, in short, not only 
the in-door but the out-of-door life of a true woman in the country. 
Every lady may not be " born to love pigs and chickens " (though 
that is a good thing to be born to) ; but, depend upon it, she has 
been cut off by her mother nature with less than a shilling's patri- 
mony, if she does not love trees, flowers, gardens, and nature, as if 
they were all part of herself. 

We half suspect, if the truth must be told, that there is a little 
affectation or coquetry among some of our fair readers, in this want 
of hearty interest in rural occuj^ation. We have noticed that it is 
precisely those who have the smallest gardens, and, therefore, who 
ought most naturally to wish to take the greatest interest in their 
culture themselves, — it is precisely those who depend entirely upon 
their gardener. They rest with such entire faith on the chivalry of 
our sex, that they gladly permit every thing to be done for them, 
and thus lose the greatest charm which their garden could give — 
that of a delightful personal intimacy. 

Almost all tlie really enthusiastic and energetic lady gardeners 
that we have the pleasure of knowing, belong to the wealthiest class 
in this country. We have a neighbor on the Hudson, for in- 
stance, whose pleasure-grounds cover many acres, whose flower- 
garden is a miracle of beauty, and who keeps six gardeners at work 
all the season. But there is never a tree transplanted that she does 
not see its roots carefully handled ; not a walk laid out that she does 
not mark its curves ; not a parterre arranged that she does not direct 
its colors and grouping, and even assist in planting it. No matter 
what guests enjoy her hospitality, several hours every day are thus 
spent in out-of-door employment ; and from the zeal and enthusiasm 
with which she always talks of every thing relating to her country 
life, we do not doubt that she is fer more rationally happy now, 
than when she received the homage .of a circle of admirei-s at one 
of the most brilliant of foreign courts. 

On the table before us, lies a letter from a lady of fortune in 
Philadelphia, whose sincei-e and hearty enthusiasm in country life 
always delights us. She is one of those beings who animate every 



ON FEMININE TASTE IN RURAL AFFAIRS. o6 

thing she touches, and would make a heart beat in a granite rock, 
if it had not the stubbornness of all " facts before the flood." She 
is in a dilemma now about the precise uses of lime (which has stag- 
gered many an old cultivator, by the way), and tells the story of her 
doubts with an earnest directness and eloquence that one seeks for in 
vain in the essays of our male chemico-horticultural correspondents. 
We are quite sure that there will be a meaning in every fi-uit and 
flower which this lady plucks from the garden, of which our fair 
friends, who are the disciples of the Sevigne school, have not the 
feeblest conception. 

There are, also, we fear, those who fancy that there is something 
rustic, unfeminine and unrefined, about an interest in country out-of- 
door matters. Would we could present to them a picture which 
rises in our memoiy, at this moment, as the finest of all jjossible de- 
nials to such a theory. In the midst of the richest agricultural region 
of the northern States, lives a lady — a young, unmarried lady ; 
mistress of herself ; of some thousands of acres of the finest lands ; 
and a mansion which is almost the ideal of taste and refinement. 
Very well. Does this lady sit in her drawing-room all day, to re- 
ceive her visitors ? By no means. You will find her, in the morn- 
ing, either on horseback or driving a light carriage with a pair of 
spirited horses. She explores every corner of the estate ; she visits 
her tenants, examines the crops, projects improvements, directs re- 
pairs, and is thoroughly mistress of her whole demesne. Her man- 
sion opens into the most exquisite garden of flowers and fi'uits, every 
one of which she knows by heart. And yet this lady, so energetic 
and spirited in her enjo}Tnent and management in out-of-door mat- 
ters, is, in the drawing-room, the most gentle, the most retiring, the 
most refined of her sex, 

A word or two more, and upon what ought to be the most im- 
portant argument of all. Exercise, fresh air, health, — are they 
not almost synonymous ? The exquisite bloom on the cheeks of 
American girls, fades, in the matron, much sooner here than in Eng- 
land, — not alone because of the softness of the English climate, as 
many suppose. It is because exercise, so necessary to the mainte- 
nance of health, is so little a matter of habit and education here, and 
so largely insisted upon in England ; and it is because exercise, when 



54 HORTICULTURE. 

taken here at all, is taken too often as a matter of duty ; that it is 
then only a lifeless duty, and has no soul in it ; while the English 
woman, who takes a living interest in her i-ural employments, in- 
hales new life in every day's occupation, and plants perpetual roses 
in her cheeks, by the mere act of planting them in her garden. 

" But, Mr. Downing, think of the hot sun in this country, and 
our complexions ! " 

Yes, yes, we know it. But get up an hour earlier, fair reader ; 
put on your broadest sun-bonnet, and your stoutest pair of gloves, 
and try the problem of health, enjoyment and beauty, before the 
sun gets too ardent. A great deal may be done in this way ; and 
after a while, if your heart is in the right place for ruralities, you 
will find the occupation so fascinating that you will gradually find 
yourself able to enjoy keenly what was at first only a very irksome 
sort of duty. 



VIII. 

ECONOMY IN GARDENING. 

May, 1849. 

MR. COLMAN, in his Agricultural Tour, remarks, that his ob- 
servations abroad convinced him that the Americans are the 
most extravagant people in the world ; and the truth of the remark 
is corroborated by the experience of every sensible traveller that re- 
turns from Europe. The much greater facility of getting money 
here, makes us more regardless of system in its expenditure ; and 
the income of many an estate abroad, amounting to twenty thou- 
sand dollars, is expended with an exactness, and nicety of calcula- 
tion, that would astonish persons in this country, who have only an 
income of twenty hundred dollars. Abroad, it is the study of 
those who have, how to save ; or, in the case of spending, how to 
get the most for their money. At home, it seems to be the desire 
of every body to get — and, having obtained wealth, to expend it in 
the most lavish and careless manner. 

There are, again, many who wish to be economical in their dis- 
bursements, but find, in a country where labor is one of the dearest 
of commodities, that every thing which is attained by the expendi- 
ture of labor, costs so much more than they had supposed, that 
moderate " improvements" — as we call all kinds of building and 
gardening in this country — in a short time consume a handsome 
competence. 

The fact, that in np country is labor better paid for than in ours, 
is one that has much to do with the success and progress of the 
country itself. Where the day-laborer is so poorly paid, that he 



56 HORTICULTURE. 

must, of necessity, always be a day-laborer, it follows, inevitably, 
that the condition of the largest number of human beings in the 
State nni.st icmain nearly stationary. On the other hand, in a com- 
munity where the industrious, prudent, and intelligent day-laborer 
<;an certainly rise to a more independent position, it is equally evi- 
dent that the impi'ovement of national character, and the increase of 
wealth, must go on rapidly together. 

But, just in proportion to the ease with whicli men accumulate 
wealth, will they desire to spend it ; and, in spending it, to obtain 
the utmost satisfaction which it can produce. Among the most 
rational modes of doing this, in the countrj^, are building and gar- 
dening ; and hence, every year, we find a greater number of our 
citizens endeavoring to realize the pleasures of country life. 

Now building is sufficiently cheap with us. A man may build 
a cottage orn^e for a few hundred dollars, which abroad would cost 
a few thousands. But the moment he touches a spade to the 
ground, to plant a tree, or to level a hillock, that moment his farm 
is taxed three or four times as heavily as in Europe ; and jxs he 
builds in a year, but " gardens" all his life, it is evident that his out- 
of-door expenses must be systematized, or economized, or he will find 
his income greatly the loser by it. Many a citizen, who has settled 
in the country with the greatest enthusiasm, has gone back to town 
in disgust at the unsuspected cost of country pleasures. 

And yet, there are ways in which economy and satisfactory re- 
sults may be combined in country life. There are always two ways 
of arriving at a result ; and, in some cases, that mode least usually 
pursued is the better and more satisfactory one. 

The price of the cheapest labor in the country generally, aver- 
ages 80 cents to $1 per day. Now we have no wish whatever to 
lower the price of labor ; we would rather feel that, by and by, we 
could aflbrd to pay even more. But we wish either to avoid un- 
necessary expenditure for labor in producing a certain result, or to 
arrive at some mode of insuring that the dollar a day, paid for labor, 
f-hall be fairly and well earned. 

Four-fifths of all the gardening labor performed in the eastern 
and middle States is performed by Irish emigrants. Always accus- 
tomed to something of oppression on the part of landlords and em- 



ECONOMY IN GARDENING, 57 

ployers, in their own country, it is not surprising that their old 
habits stick close to them here ; and as a class, they require far 
more loatching to get a fair day's labor from them than many of 
our own people. On the other hand, there is no workman who is 
more stimulated by the consciousness of working on his own ac- 
count than an Irishman. He will work stoutly and faithfully, from 
early to late, to accomplish a " job" of his own seeking, or which 
he has fairly contracted for, and accomplish it in a third less time 
than if working by the day. 

The deduction which experienced employers in the country draw 
from this, is, never to employ " rough hands," or persons whose 
ability and steadiness have not been well proved, by the day or 
month, but always by contract, piece or job. The saving to the em- 
ployer is large ; and the laborer, while he gets fairly paid, is in- 
duced, by a feeling of greater independence, or to sustain his own 
credit, to labor faithfully and without wasting the time of his em- 
ployer. 

We saw a striking illustration of this lately, in the case of two 
neighbors, — both planting extensive orchards, and requiring, there- 
fore, a good deal of extra labor. One of them had all the holes for 
his trees dug by contract, of good size, and two spades deep, for six 
cents per hole. The other had it executed by the day, and by the 
same class of labor, — foreigners, newly arrived. We had the curi- 
osity to ask a few questions, to ascertain the difference of cost in the 
two cases ; and found, as w'c expected, that the cost in the day's 
work system was about ten cents per hole, or more than a third be- 
yond what it cost by the job. 

Now, whether a country place is large or small, there is always, 
in the course of the season, more or less extra work to be performed. 
The regular gardener, or workman, must generally be hired by the 
day or month ; though we know instances of every thing being done 
by contract. But all this extra work can, in almost all cases, be 
done by contract, at a price greatly below what it would otherwise 
cost. Trenching, subsoiling, preparing the ground for orchards or 
kitchen gardens, or even ploughing, and gathering crops, may be 
done very much cheaper by contract than by day's labor. 

In Germanv, the whole family, including women and children, 



58 HORTICULTURE. 

work in the gardens and vineyards ; and they always do the same 
here when they have land in their own possession. Now in every 
garden, vineyard, or orchard, there is a great deal of light work, 
that may be as well performed by the younger members of such a 
family as by any others. Hence, we learn that the Germans, in tlu- 
large vineyards now growing on the Ohio, are able to cultivate the 
grape more profitably than other persons ; and hence, German fami- 
lies, accustomed to this kind of labor, may be employed by contract 
in doing certain kinds of horticultural labors, at a great saving to 
the employer. 

Another mode of economizing, in this kind of expenditure, is by 
the use of all possible labor-saving machines. One of our corres- 
pondents — a practical gardener — recommended, in our last num- 
ber, that the kitchen garden, in this country, in places of any im- 
portance, should always be placed near the stables, to save trouble 
and time in carting manure ; and should be so arranged as to allow 
the plough and cultivator t(j be used, instead of the spade and hoe. 
This is excellent and judicious advice, and exactly adapted to this 
country. In parts of Europe where garden labor can be had for 2(i 
cents a day, the kitchen garden may properly be treated with such 
nicety that not only good vegetables, but something ornamental 
shall be attained by it. But here, where the pay is as much for one 
man's labor as that of five men's labor is worth in Germany, it is far 
better to cheapen the cost of vegetables, and pay for ornamental 
work where it is more needed. 

So, too, with regard to every instance, where the more cheaj) and 
rapid working of an improved machine, or implement, may be sub- 
stituted for manual labor. In several of the largest country seats 
on the Hudson, where there is so great an extent of walks and car- 
riage road, that several men would be employed almost constantly 
in keeping them in order, they are all cleaned of weeds in a day by 
the aid of the horse hoe for gravel walks, described in the appendix 
to our Landscape Gardening. In all such cases as these, the pro- 
prietor not only gets rid of the trouble and care of employing a 
large number of workmen, but of the annoyance of paying more 
than their labor is fairly worth for the purpose in question. 

There are many modes of economizing in the expenditures of a 



ECONOMY IN GARDENING. 59 

country place, which time, and the ingenuity of our countrymen 
will suggest, with more experience. But there is one which has 
frequently occurred to us, and which is so obvious that we are sur- 
prised that no one has adopted it. We mean the substitution, in 
country places of tolerable size, of fine shee2}, for the scythe, in keep- 
ing the lawn in order. 

No one now thinks of considering his place in any way orna- 
mental, who does not keep his lawn well mown, — not once or twice 
a year, for grass, but once or twice a month, for " velvet." This, to 
be sure, costs something ; but, for general effect, the beauty of a 
good lawn and trees is so much greater than that of mere flowers, 
that no one, who values them rightly, Avould even think of paying 
dearly for the latter, and neglecting the former. 

Now, half a dozen or more sheep^ of some breed serviceable and 
ornamental, might be kept on a place properly arranged, so as to do 
the work of two mowers, always keeping the lawn close and short, 
and not only without expense, but possibly with some profit. No 
grass surface, except a short lawn, is neater than one cropped by 
sheep ; and, for a certain kind of country residence, where the pic- 
turesque or pastoral, rather than the studiously elegant, is desired, 
sheep would heighten the interest and beauty of the scene. 

In order to use sheep in this way, the place should be so ar- 
ranged that the flower-garden and shrubbery shall be distinct from 
the lawn. In many cases in England, a small portion, directly 
round the house, is inclosed with a wire fence, woven in a pretty 
pattern (worth three or four shillings a yard). This contains the 
flowers and shrubs, on the parlor side of the house, with a small 
portion of lawn dressed by the scythe. All the rest is fed by the 
sheep, which are folded regularly every night, to prevent accident 
from dogs. In this way, a beautiful lawn-like surface is maintained 
without the least annual outlay. We commend the practice for im- 
itation in this country. 



IX. 

A LOOK ABOUT US. 

April, 1850. 

IN the Old-fashioned way of travelling, "up hill and down dale," 
by post-coaches, it was a great gratification (altogether lost in 
swift, and smooth railroads), to stop and rest for a moment on a hill- 
top and survey the country behind and about us. 

Something of this retrospect is as refreshing and salutary in any 
other field of progress. Certainly, nothing will carry us on with 
such speed as to look neither to the right or left, to concentrate all 
our powers to this undeviating straight-forward line. But, on the 
other hand, as he who travels in a rail-car knows little or nothing 
of the country, except the points of departure and arrival, so, if we 
do not occasionally take a slight glance at things about us, we shall 
be comparatively ignoi'aut of many interesting features, not in the 
straight line of " onward march." 

One of the best signs of the times for country people, is the in- 
crease of agricultural papers in number, and the still greater increase 
of subscribers. When the Albany Cultivator stood nearly alone in 
the field, some fifteen years ago, and boasted of twenty thousand 
subscribers, it was thought a marvellous thing — this interest in the 
intellectual part of farming ; and there were those who thought it 
"could not last long." Now that there are dozens of agricultural 
journals, with hundreds of thousands of readers, the interest in 
" book farming" is at last beginning to be looked upon as something 
significant ; and the agricultural press ber/ins to feel that it is of some 
account in the commonwealth. When it does something more — 



A LOOK ABOUT US. 61 

when it rouses the farming class to a sense of its rights in the state, 
its rights to good education, to agricultural schools, to a place in the 
legislative halls ; when farmers shall not only be talked about in 
complimentary phrase as " honest yeomen," or the " bone and sinew 
of the country," but see and feel by the comparison of power and 
influence with the commercial and professional classes that they are 
such, then we shall not hear so much about the dangers of the 
republic, but more of the intelligence and good sense of the 
people. 

Among the good signs of the times, we notice the establishment 
of an Agricultural Bureau at Washington. At its head has been 
placed, for the present, at least, Dr. Lee, the editor of the Genesee 
Farmer — a man thoroughly alive to the interests of the cultivators 
of the soil, and awake to the unjust estimation practically placed 
upon farmers, both by themselves and the country at large. If he 
does his duty, as we think he will, in collecting and presenting sta- 
tistics and other information show^ing the importance and value of 
the agriculture of the United States, we believe this Agricultural 
Bm'eau will be of vast service, if only in showing the farmers theii- 
own strength for all good purposes, if they will only first educate 
and then use their powers. 

In oiu" more immediate department — horticulture — there are the 
most cheering signs of improvement in every direction. In all parts 
of the country, but especially at the West, horticultural societies are 
being formed. We think Ohio alone numbers five at this moment ; 
and as the bare formation of such societies shows the existence of 
a little more than privaste zeal on the part of the inhabitants, in gar- 
dening matters, we may take it for granted that the culture of gar- 
dens is making progress at the West, wdtli a rapidity commensurate 
to the wonderful growth there in other respects. 

It is now no longer a question, indeed, that horticulture, both for 
profit and pleasure, is destined to become of far more consequence 
here than in any part of Europe. Take, for example, the matter of 
fruit culture. In no part of Europe has the planting of orchards 
been carried to the same extent as.it has already been in the United 
States. There is no single peach orchard in France, Italy, or Spain, 
that has produced the owner over $10,000 in a single year, like 



62 HORTICULTUKE. 

one in Delaware. There is no apple orchard in Germany or north- 
ern Europe, a single crop of which has yielded $12,000, like that 
of Pelham farm on the Hudson. And these, though unusual ex- 
amples of orchard cultivation by single proprietors, are mere ft-ac- 
tions of the aggregate value of the products of the orchards, in all 
the northern States. The dried fruits — apples and peaches alone, of 
western New-York, amount in value to very large sums annually. 
And, if we judge of what we hear, orchard culture, especially of 
the finer market fruits, has only just commenced. 

We doubt if, at any horticultural assemblage that ever con- 
vened in Europe, there has been the same amount of practical 
knowledge of pomology brought together as at the congress of fruit- 
growers, last October, in New- York. An intelligent nui-seryman, who 
has just returned from a horticultural tour through G]-eat Bi'itain, 
assures us, that at the present moment that country is astonishingly 
behind us, both in interest in, and knowledge of fruits. This he 
partly explains by the fact, that only half a dozen sorts of each fruit 
are usually grown in England, where we grow twenty or thirty ; 
but mainly by the inferiority of their climate, which makes the cul- 
ture of pears, peaches, &c., without walls, an impossibility, except in 
rare cases. Again, the fact that in this country, there are so many 
landholders of intelligence among all classes of society — all busy in 
improving their places — whether they consist of a rood or a mile 
square — causes the interest in fine fruits to become so multiplied, 
that it assumes an importance here that is not dreamed of foi- it, on 
the other side of the water. 

With this wide-spread interest, and the numberless experiments 
that large practice will beget, we trust Ave shall very soon see good 
results in the production of best native varieties of the finer fruits. 
Almost every experienced American horticulturist has become 
convinced that we shall never fairly " touch bottom," or rest on a 
solid foundation, till we get a good assortment of first-rate pears, 
grapes, &c., raised from seeds in this country ; sorts with sound con- 
stitutions, adapted to our climate and soil. With great respect for 
the unwearied labors of Van Mons, and others who have followed 
his plan of obtaining varieties, we have not the least faith in the 
vital powers of varieties so originated. They will, in the end, be 



A LOOK ABOUT US. 63 

entirely abandoned in this country for sound healthy seedlings, 
laised directly from vigorous parents. 

Far as we are in advance of Europe, at this moment, in the 
matter of pomology, we are a long way behind in all that relates to 
ornamental gardening. Not that there is not a wonderfully growing 
taste for ornamental gardening, especially in the northern and east- 
ern States. Not, indeed, that we have not a number of country 
places that would be respectable in point of taste and good cultiva- 
tion every where. But the popular feeling has not fairly set in this 
direction, and most persons are content with a few common trees, 
shrubs, and plants, when they might adorn their lawns and gardens 
with species of far greater beauty. 

One of the greatest drawbacks to the satisfaction of pleasure- 
grounds, in this country, is the want of knowledge as to how they 
should be arranged to give rapid growth and fine verdure. The 
whole secret, as we have again and again stated, is the deep soil ; 
if not naturally such, then made so by deep culture. Even the best 
English gardeners (always afraid, in their damp climate, of canker, 
if the i-oots go downwards) are discouraged, and fail in our plea- 
sure-grounds, from the very fineness and dryness of our climate, be- 
cause they will not trench — trench — trench ! as we all must do, to 
have satisfactory lawns or pleasure-grounds. 

And this reminds us that a great want in the country, at the 
])resent time, is a sort of practical school for gardeners ; not so 
much to teach them from the outset — for ninety-nine hundredths 
of all our gardeners are Euroj)eans — as to naturalize their know- 
ledge in this coimtry. If one of the leading horticultural societies, 
with ready means (that of Boston, for example), would start an 
experimental garden, and making, by an agency abroad, some ar- 
rangement with deser\ang gardeners wishing to emigrate, take these 
freshmen on their arrival, and carry them through a season's prac- 
tice in the experimental garden, and let them out at the end of a 
year really good gardeners for our climate, they would do an incal- 
<;ulable service to the cause of horticulture, and to thousands of 
employers, besides getting their own gardens (like that of the Lon- 
don Horticultural Society) cultivated at a little cost. 

It may be said that gardeners would not enter such a prepara- 



64 HORTICULTURE. 

tory garden, since they could find places at once. We reply to this, 
that if they found, after they had had their year's practice in this 
garden, and could show its certificate of character and abilities, they 
could readily get $50 or $100 a year more — as we are confident 
they could — there would be no difficulty on this head. 

The Belgian government has just established such a school, and 
placed it under the direction of M. Van Houtte, the well-knowu 
horticulturist of Ghent. Something of the sort has been contem- 
plated here, in connection with the agricultural college proposed by 
this State. Considering the scarcity, nay, absolute dearth of good 
gardenei-s among us at the present moment, — the supply not half 
equal to the demand, — it seems to us that some plan might be 
adopted by which we should not be at the mercy of those who only 
call themselves gardeners, but who also know little beyond the mys- 
teries of cultivating that excellent plant, the Solanum tuberosum, 
commonly known as the potato. 



X. 

A SPRING GOSSIP. 

May, 1850. 
" TF any man feels no joy in the spring, then has he no warm 
JL blood in his veins !" So said one of the old dramatists, two 
hundred years ago ; and so we repeat his very words in this montii 
of May, eighteen hundred and fifty. Not to feel the sweet influences 
of this young and creative season, is indeed like being blind to the 
dewy brightness of the rainbow, or deaf to the rich music of the 
mocking-bird. Wliy, every thing feels it ; the gushing, noisy brook ; 
the full-throated robin ; the swallows circling and sailing through 
the air. Even the old rocks smile, and look less hard and stony ; 
or at least try to by the help of the moss, lately grown green in the 
rain and sunshine of April. And, as Lowell has so finely said, 

" Every clod feels a stir of might, 
An instinct within it that reaches and towers ; 

And grasping blindly above it for light. 
Climbs to a sonl in grass and flowers." 

From the time when the maple hangs out its little tufts of ruddy 
threads on the wood side, or the first crocus astonishes us with its au- 
dacity in embroidering the ground with gold almost before the snow 
has left it, until June flings us her first garlands of roses to tell us 
that summer is at hand, all is excitement in the country — real po- 
etic excitement — some spark of which even the dullest souls that 
follow the oxen must feel. 

'No matter how barren the past may have'been, 
'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green." 
5 



66 HORTICULTURK. 

And you, most sober and practical of men, as you stand in your 
orchard and see the fruit trees all dressed in spring robes of white, 
and pink, and blush, and immediately set about divining what a 
noble crop you will have, "if nothing happens" — meaning, thereby, 
if every thing happens as nature for the most part makes it happen 
— you, too, are a little of a poet in spite of yourself. You imagine — 
you hope — you believe — and, from that delicate gossamer fabric of 
peach-blossoms, you conjure out of the future, bushels of downy, 
ripe, ruddy, and palpable, though melting rareripes, every one of 
which is such as was never seen but at prize exhibitions, when gold 
medals bring out horticultural prodigies. If this is not being a poet 
— a practical one, if you please, but still a poet — then are there no 
gay colors in peacocks' tails. 

And as for our lady readers in the country, who hang over the 
sweet firstlings of the flowers that the spring gives us, with as fresh 
and as pure a delight every year as if the world (and violets) were 
just new born, and had not been convulsed, battered, and torn by 
earthquakes, wars, and revolutions, for more than six thousand years ; 
why, we need not waste time in proving them to be poets, and their 
lives — or at least all that part of them passed in delicious rambles 
in the woods, or sweet toils in the garden — pure poetry. However 
stupid the rest of creation may be, they, at least, see and understand 
that those early gifts of the year, yes, and the very spring itself, are 
types of foirer and better things. They, at least, feel that this won- 
derful resurrection of life and beauty out of the death-sleep of win- 
ter, has a meaning in it that should bring glad tears into our eyes, 
being, as it is, a foreshadowing of that transformation and awaken- 
ing of us all in the spiritual spring of another and a higher life. 

The flowers of spring are not so gay and gorgeous as those of 
summer and autumn. Except those flaunting gentlemen-ushei's the 
Dutch tulips (which, indeed, have been coaxed into gay liveries 
since Mynheer fell sick of flori-mania), the spring blossoms are 
delicate, modest, and subdued in color, and with something more of 
freshness and vivacity about them than is common in the lilies, 
roses, and dahlias of a later and hotter time of the year. The fact 
that the violet blooms in the spring, is of itself enough to make the 
season dear to us. We do not now mean the pansy, or three-col- 



A SPRING GOSSIP. 67 

ored violet — the "Johnny-jump-up" of the cottager — that Httle, 
roguish coquette of a blossom, all animation and boldness — but the 
true violet of the poets ; the delicate, modest, retiring ^'iolet, dim, 

" But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 
Or Cytherea's breath." 

The flower that has been loved, and praised, and petted, and culti- 
vated, at least three thousand years, and is not in the least spoiled 
by it ; nay, has all the unmistakable freshness still, of a nature 
ever young and eternal. 

There is a great deal, too, in the associations that cluster about 
spring flowers. Take that early yellow flower, j^opularly known as 
" Butter and Eggs," and the most common bulb in all our gardens, 
though introduced from abroad. It is not handsome, certainly, al- 
though one always welcomes its hardy face with pleasure ; but when 
we know that it suggested that fine passage to Shakspeare — 

•' Daffodils 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
Tlie winds of March with beauty " — 

we feel that the flower is for ever immortalized ; and though not 
half so handsome as our native blood-root, with its snowy petals, or 
our wood anemone, tinged like the first blush of morning, yet still 
the dafibdil, embalmed by poesy, like a fly in amber, has a value 
given it by human genius that causes it to stir the imagination more 
than the most faultless and sculpture-like camellia that ever bloomed 
in marble conservatory. 

A pleasant task it would be to linger over the spring flowers, 
taking them up one by one, and inhaling all their fi-agrance and 
poetry, leisurely — whether the cowslips, hyacinths, daisies, and haw- 
thorns of the garden, or the honeysuckles, trilliums, wild moccasins, 
and liverworts of the woods. But we should grow garrulous on 
the subject and the season, if we were to wander thus into details. 

Among all the flowers of spring, there are, however, few that 
surpass in delicacy, freshness, and beauty, that common and popular 
thing, an apple blossom. Certainly, no one would plant an apple- 
tree in his park or pleasure ground ; for, like a hard day-laborer, 



68 HORTICULTURE. 

it has a bent and bowed-down look in its head and branches, that 
ill accord with the graceful bending of the elm, or the well-rounded 
curve of the maple. But as the day-laborer has a soul, which at 
one time or another must blossom in all its beauty, so too has the 
apple-tree a flower that challenges the world to surpass it, whether 
for the delicacy with which the white and red are blended — as upon 
the cheek of fairest maiden of sixteen — or the wild grace and sym- 
metry of its cinquefoil petals, or the harmony of its coloring height- 
ened by the tender verdure of the bursting leaves that surround it. 
We only mention this to show what a wealth of beauty there is in 
common and familiar objects in the country ; and if any of our 
town readers are so unfortunate as never to have seen an apple or- 
chard in full bloom, then have they lost one of the fairest sights that 
the month of April has in her kaleidoscope. 

Spring, in this country, is not the tedious jade that she is in 
England, — keeping one waiting from February till June, while she 
makes her toilet, and fairly puts her foot on the daisy-spangled turf. 
For the most part, she comes to us with a quick bound ; and, to 
make amends for being late, she showers down such a wealth of 
blossoms, that our gardens and orchards, at the end of April, look as 
if they were turned into fairy parterres, so loaded are they — espe- 
cially the fruit trees — with beauty and promise. An American 
spring may be said to commence fairly with the blossom of the apri- 
cot or the elm tree, and end with the ripening of the first strawber- 
ries. 

To end with strawberries ! What a finale to one's life. More 
sanguinary, perhaps (as there is a stain left on one's fingers some- 
times), but not less delicious than to 

" Die of a rose in aromatic pain." 

But it is a fitting close to such a beautiful season to end with such 
a fruit as this. We believe, indeed, that strawberries, if the truth 
could be known, are the most popular of fruits. People always af- 
fect to prefer the peach, or the orange, or perhaps the pear ; but this 
is only because these stand well in the world — are much talked of 
— and can give " the most respectable references." But take our 



A SPRING GOSSIP. 69 

word for it, if the secret preference, the concealed passion, of every 
lover of fruit could be got at, without the formality of a public trial, 
the strawberry would be found out to be the little betrayer of hearts. 
Was not Linnaeus cured of the gout by them ? And did not even 
that hard-hearted monster, Richard the III., beseech "My Lord 
of Ely " to send for some of " the good strawberries " from his gai- 
den at Holborn ? Nay, an Italian poet has written a whole poem, 
of nine hundred lines or more, entirely upon strawberries. " Straw- 
berries and sugar " are to him what " sack and suffar " was to Fal- 
staff — "the indispensable companion — the sovereign remedy for 
all evil — the climax of good." In short, he can do no more in wish- 
ing a couple of new married friends of his the completest earthly 
happiness, than to say — 

" E a dire che ogni cosa lieta vada, 
Su le Fragole il zucchero le cada." 

In short, to sum up all that earth can prize, 
May they have sugar to their strawberries ! 

There are few writers who have treated of the spring and its in- 
fluences more fittingly than some of the English essayists ; for the 
English have the key to the poetry of rural life. Indeed, we cannot 
perhaps give our readers greater pleasure than by ending this article 
with the following extract from one of the papers of that genial and 
kindly writer, Leigh Hunt : 

" The lightest thoughts have their roots in gravity ; and the most 
fugitive colors of the world are set off by the mighty background 
of eternity. One of the greatest pleasures of so light and airy a 
thing as the vernal season, arises from the consciousness that the 
world is young again ; that the spring has come round ; that we 
shall not all cease, and be no ■world. Nature has begun again, and 
not begun for nothing. One fancies somehow that she could not 
have the heart to put a stop to us in April or May. She may pluck 
away a poor little life here and there ; nay, many blossoms of youth, 
— but not all, — not the whole garden of life. She prunes, but does 
not destroy. If she did, — if she were in the mind to have done 
with us, — to look upon us as a sort of experiment not worth going 



70 HORTICULTURE. 

on with, as a set of uugenial and obstinate compounds, which re- 
fused to co-operate in her sweet designs, and could not be made to 
answer in the woi'king, — depend upon it, she would take pity on our 
incapability and bad humors, and conveniently quash us in some 
dismal, sullen winter's day, just at the natural dying of the year, 
most likely in November ; for Christmas is a sort of spring itself — 
a winter flowering. We care nothing for arguments about storms, 
earthquakes, or other apparently unseasonable interruptions of our 
pleasures. We imitate, in that respect, the magnanimous inditfer- 
ence, or what appears to be such, of the great mother herself, know- 
ing that she means us the best in the gross ; and also that we may 
all get our remedies for these evils in time, if we will only co-operate. 
People in South America, for instance, may learn from experience, 
and build so as to make a comparative nothing of those rockings of 
the ground. It is of the gross itself that we speak ; and sure we 
are, that with an eye to that, Nature does not feel as Pope ventures 
to say she does, or sees ' with equal eye ' — 

Atoms or systems into ruin hiu-l'd, 

And now a bubble burst, <ind now a world.' 

" He may have flattered himself that he should think it a fine 
thing for his little poetship to sit upon a star, and look grand in his 
own eyes, from an eye so very dispassionate ; but Nature, who is the 
author of passion, and joy, and sorrow, does not look upon animate 
and inanimate, depend upon it, with the same want of sympathy. 
' A world ' full of hopes, and loves, and endeavors, and of her own 
life and loveliness, is a far greater thing in her eyes, rest assured, than 
a ' bubble ;' and, a fortiori, many worlds, or a ' system,' far greater 
than the ' atom,' talked of with so much complacency by this di- 
vine little whipper-snapper. Ergo, the moment the kind mother 
gives promise of a renewed year, with these green and budding sig- 
nals, be certain she is not going to falsity them ; and that being sure 
of April, we are sure as far as November. As for an existence any 
further, that, we conceive, depends somewhat upon how we behave 
ourselves ; and therefore we would exhort everybody to do their best 
for the earth, and all that is upon it, in order that it and they may 
be thought worth continuance. 



A SPRIKG GOSSIP. ^1 

" What ! Shall we be put into a beautiful garden, and turn up 
our noses at it, and call it a ' vale of tears,' and all sorts of bad 
names (helping thereby to make it so), and yet confidently reckon 
that nature will never shut it up, and have done with it, or set about 
forming a better stock of inhabitants ? Recollect, we beseech you, 
dear 'Lord Worldly Wiseman,' and you, 'Sir Having,' and my 
' Lady Greedy,' that there is reason for supposing that man was 
not always an inhabitant of this very fashionable world, and some- 
what larger globe ; and that perhaps the chief occupant before him 
was only an inferior species to ourselves (odd as you may think it), 
who could not be brought to know what a beautiful place he lived 
in, and so had a different chance given him in a different shape. 
Good heavens ! If there were none but mere ladies and gentlemen, 
and city-men, and soldiers, upon earth, and no poets, readers, and 
milkmaids, to remind us that there is such a thing as Nature, we 
really should begin to tremble for Almacks and Change Alley (the 
' upper ten ' and Wall-street), about the 20th of next October." 



XL 



THE GREAT DISCOVERY IN VEGETATION. 

April, 1851. 

IT is one of the misfortunes of an editor to be expected to answer 
all questions, as if lie were an oracle. It is all pleasant enough, 
when his correspondent is lost in the woods, and he can speedily set 
him right, or when he is groping in some dark passage that only 
needs the glimmer of his farthing candle of experience, to make 
the way tolerably clear to him. But correspondents are often un- 
reasonable, and ask for what is little short of a miracle. It is clear 
that an editor is not only expected to know every thing, but that he 
is not to be allowed the comfort of belonging to any secret societies, 
or any of those little fraternities where such a charming air of mys- 
tery is thrown over the commonest subjects. 

We are brought to these reflections by a letter that has just 
come before us, and which runs as follows : 

Dear Sir : — I have been expecting in the last two numbers, to 
hear from you on the subject of the great discovery in vegetation, 
which was laid before the committee of the State Agricultural Soci- 
ety at its annual meeting in January last. You were, if I mistake 
not, a member of that committee, and of course, the fullest disclo- 
sures of the secret of the gentleman who claims to have found out 
a new " principle in vegetation," were laid before you. No formal 
report has, I think, been published by the Society. The public are, 
therefore, in the dark still. Is this right, when the discoverer is now 
urging the Legislature of this State to pass a bill giving him a 



THE GREAT DISCOVERY IN VEGETATION. 73 

bonus of $1 50,000 to make his secret public, for the benefit of all 
cultivators of the soil ? Either the thing is pure humbug, or there 
is something in it worthy of attention. Pray enlighten us on this 
subject. Yours, &c. 

Yes, we were upon that committee, and nothing would give us 
greater pleasure than to unburden our heart to the public on this 
subject, and rid our bosom of this "perilous stuff" that has weighed 
upon us ever since. But alas ! this gentleman who has been urging 
•his great discovery upon the attention of Congress and the Legisla- 
ture for ten or twelve years past, put all the committee under a 
solemn vow of secrecy, though we protested at the time against his 
expecting that a horticultural editor should preserve silence touching 
any thing that is told him suh rosa. 

And yet we would not treat our correspondent rudely ; for his 
letter only expresses what a good many others have expressed to us 
verbally. We shall, therefore, endeavor to console him for the want 
of the learned dissertation on vegetable physiology which he no 
doubt expected, by telling him a story. 

Once on a time there was a little spaniel, who lived only for the 
good of his race. He had a mild countenance, and looked at the 
first, enough like other dogs. But for all that, he was an oddity. 
Year in and year out, this little spaniel wandered about with a wise 
look, like the men that gaze at the stars through the great tele- 
scopes. The fact was, he had taken it into his head that he was a 
philosopher, and had discovered a great secret. This was no less 
than the secret of instinct by which dogs do so many wonderful' 
things, that some men with all their big looks, their learning, yes, 
and even their wondeiful knack of talking, cannot do. 

It was curious to see how the little spaniel who had turned philo- 
sopher, gave himself up to this fancy that had got into his head. He 
had a comfortable kennel, where he might have kept house, barked, 
looked after trespassers, where he might have been well fed, and 
had a jolly time of it like other dogs. 

But no, he was far too wise for that. He had, as he said, found 
out something that would alter the whole " platform " on which 
dogs stood, something that would help them to carry their heads 



74 HORTICULTURE. 

higher than many men he could name, instead of being obliged to 
play second fiddle to the horse. If the community of dogs in gen- 
eral would but listen to him, he would teach them not only how to 
be always wise and rich, how to be strong and hearty, but above all, 
how to preserve their scent — for the scent is a pleasure that dogs 
prize as much as some old ladies who take snuff. In short, the 
knowledge of this wonderful discovery would bring about a canine 
millennium — for he assured them that not only was every one of them 
entitled to his " day," but that " a good time was coming," even for 
dogs. 

And why, you will say, did not our philosopher divulge for the 
benefit of the whole family of dogs ? " It is so pleasant to do some- 
thing for the elevation of our race," as the travelled monkey thought 
when he was teaching his brothers to walk on their hind legs. All 
the dogs in the country could not but owe him a debt of gratitude, 
since they would soon become so wise that they might even teach 
their masters something of instinct. And then they would be so 
happy — since there would not be a downcast tail in all the land — 
for the whole country would be in one perpetual wag of delight. 

Ah ! dear reader, we see that you, who put such questions, know 
nothing either of philosophy, or the world. As if the people who 
discover why the world turns round, and the stai's shine, throw their 
knowledge into the street for every dog to trample on. No, indeed ! 
They will have a patent for it, or a great sum of money from the 
government, or something of that sort. It would be a sorry fellow 
who should think that every new thing found out is to be given 
away to every body for nothing at all, in that manner. To be sme, 
it would, perhaps, benefit mankind all the more ; but that is only 
half the question. " If you think the moon is made of green 
cheese," said our curly philosopher to his friends, " you are greatly 
mistaken. I am well satisfied, for my part, that that is only a vul- 
gar error. If it had been, John Bull would have eaten it up for 
lunch a long time ago." 

So our philosopher went about among his fellow-dogs, far and 
near, and spent most of his little patrimony in waiting on distin- 
guished mastiffs, Newfoundlands, and curs of high degree. He 
went, also, to all conventions or public assemblies, where wise ter- 



THE GREAT DISCOVERY IN VEGETATION. "TS 

liers were in the habit of putting their heads together for the public 
good. Wherever he went, you would see him holding some poor 
victim by the button, expounding his great secret, and showing how 
the progress, yes, the very existence of dogs, depended upon the 
knowledge of his secret — since it would really explain in a moment 
every thing that had been dark since the days when their gi-eat- 
grandfathers were kept from drowning in the ark. Only let the 
congress of greyhounds agree to pay him a million of money, and 
he would make known principles that would make the distemper 
cease, and all the other ills that dog-flesh is heir to, fade clean out 
of memory. 

Some of the big dogs to whom he told his secret (always, re- 
member, in the strictest confidence), shook their heads, and looked 
wise ; others, to get rid of his endless lectures, gave him a certificate, 
saying that Solomon was wrong when he said there was nothing 
new under the sun ; and all agreed that there was no denying that 
there is something in it, though they could not exactly say it was a 
new discovery. 

Finally, after a long time spent in lobbying, and after wise talks 
with all the members that would listen to him, yes, and after exhib- 
iting to every dog that had an hour to give him, his collection of 
dogs' bones that had died solely because of the lamentable ignorance 
of his secret in dogdom, he found a committee that took hold of 
his doctrine in good earnest — quite determined to do justice to him, 
and vote him a million if he deserved it, but, nevertheless, quite de- 
termined not to be humbugged by any false doggerel, however 
potent it might have been to terriers less experienced in this current 
commodity of many modern philosophers. 

It was a long story that the committee were obliged to hear, 
and there were plenty of hard words thrown in to puzzle terriers 
who might not have had a scientific education in their youth. But 
the dogs on the committee were not to be puzzled ; they seized hold 
of the fundamental principle of the philosophic spaniel, tossed it, 
and worried it, and shook it, till it stood out, at last, quite a simple 
truth (how beautiful is deep philosophy), and it was this — 

The great secret of perfect instinct in dogs, is to keep their 

NOSES COOL. 



Y6 HORTICULTURE. 

Of course, the majority of the committee were startled and de- 
Hghted with the novelty and grandeur of the discovery. There 
were, to be sure, a few who had the foolhardiness to remark, that 
the thing was not new, and had been acted upon, time out of mind, 
in all good kennels. But the philosopher soon put down such non 
sense, by observing that the fact might, perchance, have been known 
to a few, but who, before him, had ever shown the principle of the 
thing ? 

And now, we should like to see that cur who shall dare to say 
the canine philosopher who has spent his life in studying nature and 
the books, to such good results, shall not have a million for his 
discovery. 



XII. 

STATE AND PROSPECTS OF HORTICULTURE. 

December, 1851. 

A RETROSPECTIVE glance over the journey we have travelled, 
is often both instructive and encouraging. We not only learn 
what we have really accomplished, but we are better able to over- 
come the obstacles that lie in our onward way, by reviewing the 
diflSculties already overcome. 

The progress of the last five years in Horticulture, has been a 
remarkable one in the United States. The rapid increase of popu- 
lation, and the accumulation of capital, has very naturally led to the 
multiplication of private gardens and country-seats, and the planting 
of orchards and market gardens, to an enormous extent. The 
facility with which every man may acquire land in this country, 
naturally leads to the formation of separate and independent homes, 
and the number of those who are in some degree interested in the 
culture of the soil is thus every day being added to. The very fact, 
however, that a large proportion of these little homes are new 
places, and that the expense of building and establishing them 
is considerable, prevents their owners from doing much more 
for the first few years, than to secure the more useful and necessary 
features of the establishment. Hence, the ornamental still appears 
neglected in our country homes and gardens, generally, as compared 
with those of the more civilized countries abroad. The shrubs, and 
flowers, and vines, that embellish almost every where the rural homes 
of England, are as yet only rarely seen in this country — though in all 
the older sections of the Union the taste for ornamental gardening 



78 HORTICULTURE. 

is developing itself anew every day. On the other hand, the great 
facility with which excellent fruits and vegetables are grown in this 
climate, as compared with the North of Europe, makes our gardens 
compare most favorably with theirs in respect to these two points. 
The tables of the United States are more abundantly supplied with 
peaches and melons, than those of the wealthiest classes abroad — 
and the display of culinary vegetables of the North of Europe, which 
is almost confined to the potatoes, peas, French beans, and cauli- 
flowers, makes but a sorry comparison with the abundant bill of 
fare within the daily reach of all Americans, The traveller abroad 
from this side of the Atlantic, learns to value the tomatoes, Lidian 
corn, Lima beans, egg-j^lants, okra, sweet potatoes, and many other 
half-tropical products, which the bright sun of his OAvn laud offers 
him in such abundance, with a new relish ; and putting these and 
the delicious fruits, which are so cheaply and abundantly produced, 
into the scale against the smooth lawns and the deep verdure of 
Great Britain, he is more than consoled for the superiority of the 
latter country in these finer elements of mere embellishment. 

In the useful branches of gardening, the last ten years have 
largely increased the culture of all the fine culinary vegetables, and 
our markets are now almost every where abundantly supplied with 
them. The tomato, the egg-plant, salsify, and okra, from being 
rarities have become almost universally cultivated. The tomato 
affords a singular illustration of the fact that an article of food not 
generally relished at first, if its use is founded in its adaptation to 
the nature of the climate, may speedily come to be considered in- 
dispensable to a whole nation. Fifteen years ago it would have been 
difficult to find this vegetable for sale in five market towns in 
America. At the present moment, it is grown almost every where, 
and there are hundreds of aci'es devoted to its culture for the supply 
of the New- York market alone. We are certain that no people at 
the present moment, use so large a variety of fine vegetables as the 
people of the United States. Their culture is so remarkably easy, 
and the product so abundant. 

We have no means of knowing the precise annual value of the 
products of the orchards of the United States. The Commissioner 
of Patents, fi-om the statistics in his possession, estimates it at ten 



STATE AND PROSPECTS OF HORTICULTURE. 79 

millions of dollars. The planting of orchards and fruit-gardens 
within the last five years has been more than three times as great as 
in any previous five years, and as soon as these trees come into 
bearing, the annual value of their products cannot fall short of 
twenty-five or thirty millions of dollars. American apples are uni- 
versally admitted to be the finest in the world, and om* pippins and 
Baldwins have taken their place among the regular exports of thf 
country. In five years more we confidently ex|3ect to see our fine 
late pears taking the same rank, and from the great success which 
has begun to attend their extensive culture in Western New- York, 
there can be little doubt that that region will come to be considered 
the centre of the pear culture of this countiy. 

The improvements of the last few years in fruit-tree culture have 
been very great, and are very easily extended. From having been 
pursued in the most careless and slovenly manner possible, it is now 
perhaps the best undei-stood of any branch of horticulture in 
America. The importance of deep trenching, mulching, a correct 
system of pruning, and the proper manures, have come to be pretty 
generally acknowledged, so that our horticultural shows, especially, 
and the larger markets, to a certain extent, begin to show decided 
evidences of progress in the art of raising good fruits. Our nursery- 
men and amateurs, after having made trial of hundreds of highly 
rated foreign sorts, and found but few of them really valuable, are 
turning their attention to the propagation and dissemination ot 
those really good, and to the increase of the number mainly by 
selections from the numerous good native varieties now springing 
into existence. 

The greatest acquisition to the amateur's fi-uit garden, within the 
last few years, has been the cold vinery, — a cheap glass structure by 
the aid of which, without any fire heat, the finest foreign grapes can 
be fully ripened, almost to the extreme northern parts of the Union. 
These vineries have astonishingly multiplied within the last four 
years, so that instead of being confined to the gardens of the very 
wealthy, they are now to be found in the environs of all our larger 
towns — and a necessary accompaniment to every considerable 
country place. As a matter of luxury, in fruit gardening, they per- 
haps aff"ord more satisfaction and enjoyment than any other single 



80 HORTICULTURE. 

feature whatever, and the annual value of the gi-apes, even to the 
market-gardener, is a very satisfactory interest on the outlay made 
in the necessary building. 

Now that the point is well settled that the foreign grapes cannot 
be successfully grown without the aid of glass, our most enterprising 
experimentalists are busy with the production of new hybrid varie- 
ties — the product of a cross between the former and our native vari- 
eties — which shall give us fine flavor and adaptation to open air 
culture, and some results lately made public, would lead us to the 
belief that the desideratum may soon be attained. In the mean 
time the native grapes, or at least one variety — the Catawba — has 
taken its rank — no longer disputed — as a fine wine grape ; and the 
hundreds of acres of vineyards which now line the banks of the 
Ohio, and the rapid sale of their vintages, show conclusively that we 
can at least make the finest light wines on this side of the Atlantic. 

In ornamental gardening, many and beautiful are the changes 
of the last few years. Cottages and villas begin to embroider the 
country in all directions, and the neighborhood of our three or four 
largest cities begins to vie with the environs of any of the old world 
capitals in their lovely surroundings of beautiful gardens and grounds. 
The old and formal style of design, common until within a few years, 
is almost displaced by a more natural and graceful style of curved 
lines, and graceful plantations. The taste for ornamental planting 
has extended so largely, that much as the nurseries have increased, 
they are not able to meet the demand for rare trees and shrubs — 
especially evergreens — so that hundreds of thousands of fine species 
are annually imported from abroad. Though by no means so favor- 
able a climate for lawns as that of England, ours is a far better one 
for deciduous trees, and our park and pleasure-ground scenery (if 
we except evergreens) is marked even now by a greater variety of 
foliage than one easily finds in any other temperate climate. 

A pecuUar feature of what may be called the scenery of orna- 
mental grounds in this country, at the present moment, is, as we 
have before remarked, to be found in our rural cemeteries. They 
vary in size, from a few to three or four hundred acres, and in char- 
acter, from pretty shrubberies and pleasure-grounds to wild sylvan 
groves, or superb parks and pleasure-grounds — laid out and kept in 



STATE AND PROSPECTS OF HORTICULTURE. 81 

the highest style of the art of landscape gardening. There is noth- 
ing in any part of the world which equals in all respects, at the 
present moment, Greenwood Cemetery, near New-York — though it 
has many rivals. We may give some idea of the extent and high 
keeping of this lovely resting-place of the dead, by saying that about 
three hundred persons were constantly employed in the care, im- 
provement, and preservation of its grounds, this season. The Ceme- 
tery of the Evergreens, also near New- York, Mount Auburn at Bos- 
ton, Laurel Hill at Philadelphia, and the cemeteries of Cincinnati, 
Albany, Salem, and several others of the larger towns, are scarcely 
less interesting in many respects — while all have features of interest 
and beauty peculiar to themselves. 

From cemeteries we naturally rise to public parks and gardens. 
As yet our countrymen have almost entirely overlooked the sanitary 
value and importance of these breathing places for large cities, or 
the powerful part which they may be made to play in refining, ele- 
vating, and affording enjo}Tnent to the people at large. A more 
rapid and easy communication with Europe is, however, beginning 
to awaken us to a sense of our vast inferiority in this respect, and 
the inhabitants of our largest cities are beginning to take a lively 
interest in the appropriation of sufficient space — while space may be 
obtained — for this beautiful and useful purpose. The government 
has wisely taken the lead in this movement, by undertaking the im- 
provement (on a comprehensive plan given by us) of a large piece 
of public ground — 150 acres or more — lying almost in the heart of 
Washington. A commencement has been made this season, and 
we hope the whole may be completed in the course of three or four 
years. The plan embraces four or five miles of carriage-drive — 
walks for pedestrians — ponds of water, fountains and statues — pic- 
turesque groupings of trees and shrubs, and a complete collection of 
all the trees that belong to North America. It will, if carried out 
as it has been undertaken, undoubtedly give a gi-eat impetus to the 
popular taste in landscape-gardening and the culture of ornamental 
trees ; and as the climate of Washington is one peculiarly adapted 
to this purpose — this national park may be made a sylvan museum 
such as it would be diflScult to equal in beauty and variety in any 
part of the world. 



82 HORTICULTURE. 

As a part of the same movement, we must not forget to mention 
that the city of New- York has been empowered by the State legis- 
Uiture to buy 160 acres of land, admirably situated in the upper 
part of the city, and improve and embellish it for a public park. A 
similar feeling is on foot in Philadelphia, where the Gratz estate and 
the Lemon Hill estate are, Ave understand, likely to be purchased by 
the city for this purpose. It is easy to see from these signs of the 
times, that gardening — both as a practical art and an art of taste — 
is advancing side by side Avith the steady and rapid growth of the 
country — and we congratulate our readers tliat they live in an age 
and nation where the whole tendency is so healthful and beautiful, 
and where man's destiny seems to grow brighter and better every 
day. 



XIII. 

AMERICAN vs. BRITISH HORTICULTURE. 

June, 1852. 

WHEN a man goes into a country without understanding its 
language — merely as a traveller — he is likely to comprehend 
little of the real character of that country ; when he settles in it, 
and persists in not understanding its language, manners, or customs, 
and stubbornly adheres to his own, there is little probabihty of 
his ever being a contented or successful citizen. In such a country 
as this, its very spirit of liberty and progress, its freedom from old 
prejudices, and the boundless life and energy that make the pulses 
of its true citizens — either native or adopted — beat with health and 
exultation, only serve to vex and chafe that alien in a strange land, 
who vainly tries to live in the new world, with all his old-world 
prejudices and customs. 

We are led into this train of reflection by being constantly re- 
minded, as we are in our various journeyings through the countiy, 
of the heavy impediment existing — the lion lying in the path of our 
progress in horticulture, all over the country, in the circumstance 
that our practical gardening is almost entirely in the hands of for- 
eign gardeners. The statistics of the gardening class, if carefully 
collected, would, we imagine, show that not three per cent, of all 
the working gardeners in the United States, are either native or 
naturalized citizens. They are, for the most part, natives of Ireland, 
with a few Scotchmen, and a still smaller proportion of English and 
Germans. 

We suppose we have had as much to do, for the last sixteen or 



84 HORTICULTURE. 

eighteen years, with the employment of gardeners, as almost any 
person in America, and we never remember an instance of an Ame- 
rican offering himself as a professional gardener. Our own rural 
workmen confine themselves wholly to the farm, knowing nothing, 
or next to nothing, of the more refined and careful operations of the 
garden. We may, therefore, thank foreigners for nearly all the 
gardening skill that we have in the country, and we are by no 
means inclined to underrate the value of their labors. Among them 
there are, as we well know, many most excellent men, who deserve 
the highest commendation for skill, taste, and adaptation — though, 
on the other hand, there are a great many who have been gar- 
deners (if we may trust their word for it), to the Duke of , 

and the Marquis of , but who would make us pity his grace or 

his lordship, if we could believe he ever depended on Paddy for 
any other exotics than potatoes and cabbages. 

But taking it for granted that our gardeners are wholly foreign- 
ers, and mostly British, they all have the disadvantage of coming 
to us, even the best educated of them, with their practice wholly 
founded upon a climate the very opposite of ours. Finding how 
little the "natives" know of their favorite art, and being, therefore, 
by no means disposed to take advice of them, or unlearn any of 
their old-world knowledge here, are they not, as a class, placed very 
much in the condition of the aliens in a foreign country, we have 
just alluded to, who refuse, for the most part, either to learn its lan- 
guage, or adapt themselves to the institutions of that country ? We 
think so ; for in fact, no two languages can be more different than 
the gardening tongues of England and Amei'ica. The ugly words 
of English gardening, are damp, wet, ivant of sunshine, canker. Our 
bugbears are drought, hot sunshine, great stimulus to groivth, and 
blights and diseases resulting from sudden checks. An English 
gardener, therefore, is very naturally taught, as soon as he can lisp, 
to avoid cool and damp aspects, to nestle like a lizard, on the sunny 
side of south walls, to be perpetually guarding the roots of plants 
against wet, and continually opening the heads of his trees and 
shrubs, by thinning out the branches, to let the light in. He raises 
even his flower-beds, to shed off the too abundant rain ; trains his 
fruit-trees upon trellises, to expose every leaf to the sunshine, and is 



AMERICAN VS. BRITISH HORTICULTURE. 85 

continually endeavoring to extract " sunshine from cucumbers," in 
a climate where nothing grows golden and ripe without coaxing na- 
ture's smiles under glass-houses ! 

For theorists, who know little of human nature, it is easy to 
answer — " well, when British gardenei-s come to a climate totally 
different from their own — where sunshine is so plenty that they can 
raise melons and peaches as easily as they once did cauliflowers 
and gooseberries — why, they will open their eyes to such glaring 
facts, and alter their practice accordingly." Very good reasoning, 
indeed. But anybody who knows the effect of habit and education 
on character, know'S that it is as difficult for an Irishman to make 
due allowance for American sunshine and heat, as for a German to 
forget sour-krout, or a Yankee to feel an instinctive reverence for 
royalty. There is a whole lifetime of education, national habit, 
daily practice, to overcome, and reason seldom has complete sway 
over the minds of men rather in the habit of practising a system, 
than referring to principles, in their every-day labors. 

Rapid as the progress of horticulture is at the present time in 
the United States, there can be no doubt that it is immensely re- 
tarded by this disadvantage, that all our gardeners have been edu- 
cated in the school of British horticulture. It is their misfortune, 
since they have the constant obstacle to contend with, of not under- 
standing the necessities of our climate, and therefore endeavoring to 
carry out a practice admirably well suited where they learned it — 
but most ill suited to the country where they are to practise it. It 
is our misfortune, because we suffer doubly by their mistakes — first, 
in the needless money they spend in their failures — and second, in 
the discouragement they throw upon the growing taste for garden- 
ing among us. A gentleman who is himself ignorant of gardening, 
establishes himself at a country-seat. He engages the best gar- 
dener he can find. The latter fails in one half that he attempts, 
and the proprietor, knowing nothing of the reason of the failures, 
attributes to the diflSculties of the thing itself, what should be attri- 
buted to the want of knowledge, or experience of the soil and cli- 
mate, in the gardener. 

A case of this kind, which has recently come under our notice, 
is too striking an illustration not to be worth mentioning here. In 



86 HORTICULTURE. 

one of our large cities south of New-York, where the soil and cli- 
mate are particularly fine for fruit-growing — where the most deli- 
cious peaches, pears, and apricots grow almost as easily as the apple 
at the north, it was confidently stated to us by several amateurs, that 
the foreign grape could not be cultivated in vineries there — " several 
had tried it and failed." We were, of course, as incredulous as if 
we had been told that tlie peach would not ripen in Persia, or the 
fig in Spain. But our incredulity was answered by a promise to 
show us the next day, that the thing had been well tried. 

We were accordingly shown : and the exhibition, as we sus- 
pected, amounted to this. The vineries were in all cases placed and 
treated, in that bright, powerful sunshine, just as they would have 
been placed and treated in Britain — that is, facing due south, and 
generally under the shelter of a warm bank. Besides this, not half 
provision enough was made, either for ventilation or water. The 
result was perfectly natural. The vines were burned up by excess 
of light and heat, and starved for want of air and water. We pointed 
out how the same money (no small amount, for one of the ranges 
was 200 feet long), applied in building a span-roofed house, on a 
perfectly open exposure, and running on a north and south, instead 
of an east and west line, and treated by a person who would open 
his eyes to the fact, that he was no longer gardening in the old, but 
the new world — would have given tons of gi'apes, where only pounds 
had been obtained. 

The same thing is seen on a smaller scale, in almost every fruit 
garden that is laid out. Tender fruit trees are planted on the south 
side of fences or walls, for sun, when they ought always to be put on 
the north, for shade ; and foliage is constantly thinned out, to let 
the sun in to the fruit, when it ought to be encouraged to grow 
thicker, to protect it from the solar rays.* 

But, in fact, the whole routine of practice in American and 
British horticulture, is, and must be essentially different. We give 
to Boston, Salem, and the eastern cities, the credit of bearing oft" the 

* If we were asked to say what practice, founded on principle, had been 
most beneficially introduced into our horticulture — we should answer 
mulching — mulching suggested by the need of moisture iu our dry climate, 
the difficulty of preserving it about the roots of plants. 



AMERICAN VS. BRITISH HORTICULTURE. 8*7 

palm of horticultural skill ; and we must not conceal the fact, that 
the superiority of the fruits and flowers there, in a climate more im- 
favorable than that of the middle States, has been owing, not to the 
superiority of the foreign gardeners which they employ — but to the 
gi'eater knowledge and interest in horticulture taken there by the 
proprietors of gardens themselves. There is really a native school 
of horticulture about Boston, and even foreign gardeners there are 
obliged to yield to its influence. 

We have spoken out our thoughts on this subject plainly, in the 
hope of benefiting both gardeners and employers among us. Every 
right-minded and intelligent foreign gardener, will agree with us in 
deploring the ignorance of many of his brethren, and we hope will, 
by his influence and example, help to banish it. The evil we com- 
plain of has grown to be a very serious one, and it can only be 
cured by continually urging upon gardeners that British horticulture 
will not suit America, without great modification, and by continually 
insisting upon employers learning for themselves, the princijiles of 
gardening as it must be practised, to obtain any good results. This 
sowing good seed, and gathering tares, is an insult to Providence, in 
a country that, in its soil and climate, invites a whole population to 
a feast of Flora and Pomona. 



XIV. 

ON THE DRAPERY OF COTTAGES AND GARDENS. 

February, 1849. 

OUR readers very well know that, in the country, whenever any 
thing especially tasteful is to be done, when a churcli is to be 
" dressed for Christmas," a public hall festooned for a fair, or a sa- 
loon decorated for a horticultural show, we have to entreat the assist- 
ance of the fairer half of humanity. All that is most graceful and 
charming in this way, owes its existence to female hands. Over the 
heavy exterior of man's handiwork, they weave a fairy-like web of en- 
chantment, which, like our Indian summer liaze upon autumn hills, 
spiritualizes and makes poetical, whatever of rude form or rough 
outlines may lie beneath. 

Knowing all this, as we well do, we write this leader especially 
for the eyes of the ladies. They are naturally mistresses of the art 
of embellishment. Men are so stupid, in the main, about these mat- 
ters, that, if the majority of them had their own way, there would 
neither be a ringlet, nor a ruffle, a wreath, nor a nosegay left in the 
world. All would be as stiff and as meaningless as their own 
meagre black coats, without an atom of the graceful or romantic 
about them ; nothing to awaken a spark of interest or stir a chord 
of feeling ; nothing, in short, but downright, commonplace matter- 
of-fact. And they undertake to defend it — the logicians — on the 
ground of utility and the spirit of the age ! As if trees did not 
bear lovely blossoms as well as good fruit ; as if the sun did not 
give us rainbows as well as light and warmth ; as if there were not 
still mocking-birds and nightingales as well as ducks and turkeys. 



ON THE DRAPERY OF COTTAGES AND GARDENS. 89 

But enough of that. You do not need any arguments to prove 
that grace is a quality as positive as electro-magnetism. Would 
that you could span the world with it as quickly as Mr. Morse with 
his telegraph. To come to the point, we want to talk a little with 
you about what we call the drapery of cottages and gardens ; about 
those beautiful vines, and climbers, and creepers, which nature made 
on purpose to cover up every thing ugly, and to heighten the charm 
of every thing pretty and picturesque. In short, we want your aid 
and assistance in dressing, embellishing, and decorating, not for a 
single holiday, fair, or festival, but for yeare and for ever, the out- 
sides of our simple cottages, and country homes ; wreathing them 
about with such perennial festoons of verdure, and starring them 
over with such bouquets of delicious odor, that your husbands and 
brothers would no more think of giving up such houses, than they 
would of abandoning you (as that beggarly Greek, Theseus, did the 
lovely Ariadne) to the misery of solitude on a desolate island. 

And what a difference a little of this kind of rural drapery, 
tastefully an-anged, makes in the aspect of a cottage or farm house 
in the country ! At the end of the village, for instance, is that old- 
fashioned stone house, which was the homestead of Tim Steady. 
First and last, that family lived there two generations ; and every 
thing about them had a look of some comfort. But with the ex- 
ception of a coat of paint, which the house got once in ten years, 
nothing was ever done to give the place the least appearance of 
taste. An old, half decayed ash-tree stood near the south door, and 
ia few decrepit and worn-out apple-trees behind the house. But 
there was not a lilac bush, nor a syringo, not a rose-bush nor a honey- 
suckle about the whole premises. You would never suppose that 
a spark of affection for nature, or a gleam of feeling for grace or 
beauty, in any shape, ever dawned within or around the house. 

Well, five years ago the place Avas jjut up for sale. There were 
some things to recommend it. There was a " good well of water ;" 
the house was in excellent repair ; and the location was not a bad 
one. But, though many went to see it, and "liked the place toler- 
ably well," yet there seemed to be a want of heart about it, that 
made it unattractive, and prevented people from buying it. 

It was a good while in the market ; but at last it fell into the 



90 HORTICULTURE. 

hands of the Widow Winning and her two daughters. They bought 
it at a bargain, and must have foreseen its capabihties. 

What that house and place is now, it would do your heart good 
to see. A porch of rustic trellis-work was built over the front door- 
way, simple and pretty hoods upon brackets over the windows, the 
door-yard was all laid out afresh, the worn-out apple-trees were dug 
up, a nice bit of lawn made around the house, and pleasant groups 
of shrubbery (mixed with two or three graceful elms) planted about 
it. But, most of all, what fixes the attention, is the lovely profusion 
of flowering vines that enrich the old house, and transform what 
was a soulless habitation, into a home that captivates all eyes. Even 
the old and almost leafless ash-tree is almost overrun with a creeper, 
which is stuck full of gay trumpets all summer, that seem to blow 
many a strain of gladness to the passers by. How many sorts of 
honeysuckle, clematises, roses, etc., there are on Avail or trellis about 
that cottage, is more than we can tell. Certain it is, however, that 
half the village walks past that house of a summer night, and in- 
wardly thanks the fair inmates for the fragrance that steals through 
the air in its neighborhood : and no less certain is it that this house 
is now the " admired of all admirers," and that the Widow Winning 
has twice refused double the sum it went begging at when it was 
only the plain and meagre home of Tim Steady. 

Many of you in the country, as we well know, are compelled by 
circumstances to live in houses which some one else built, or which 
have, by ill-luck, an ugly expression in every board or block of stone, 
from the sill of the door to the peak of the roof. Paint won't hide 
it, nor cleanliness disguise it, however goodly and agreeable things 
they are. But vines will do both ; or, what is better, they Avill, with 
their lovely, graceful shapes, and rich foliage and flowere, give a new 
character to the whole exterior. However ugly the wall, however bald 
the architecture, only give it this fair drapery of leaf and blossom, 
and nature will touch it at once with something of grace and beauty. 

" What are our favorite vines ? " This is what you would ask 
of us, and this is what we are most anxious to teU you ; as we see, 
already, that no sooner will the spring open, than you Avill imme- 
diately set about the good work. 

Our two favorite vines, then, for the adornment of cottages, in 



ON THE DRAPERY OF COTTAGES AND GARDENS. 91 

the Northern States, are the double Prairie Rose, and the Chinese 
Wistaria. Why we Hke these best is, because they have the greatest 
number of good qualities to recommend them. In the first place, 
they are hardy, thriving in all soils and exposures ; in the second 
place, they are luxuriant in their growth, and produce an effect in 
a veiy short time — after which, they may be kept to the limits of a 
single pillar on the piazza, or trained over the whole side of a cot- 
tage ; in the last place, they are rich in the foliage, and beautiful in 
the blossom. 

Now there are many vines more beautiful than these in some 
respects, but not for this purpose, and taken altogether. For cottage 
drapery, a popular vine must be one that will grow anywhere, with 
little care, and must need no shelter, and the least joossible attention, 
beyond seeing that it lias something to run on, and a looking over, 
pruning, and tying up once a year — say in early spring. This is 
precisely the character of these two vines ; and hence we think they 
deserve to be planted from one end of the Union to the other. They 
will give the greatest amount of beauty, with the least care, and in 
the greatest number of places. 

The Prairie roses are, no doubt, known to most of you. They 
have been raised from seeds of the wild rose of Michigan, which 
clambers over high trees in the forests, and are remarkable for the 
profusion of their very double flowers (so double, that they always 
look like large pouting buds, rather than full-blown roses), and 
their extreme hardiness and luxuriance of growth, — shoots of twenty 
feet, in a single year, being a not uncommon sight. Among all the 
sorts yet known, the Queen of the Prairies (deep pink), and Superba 
(nearly white), are the best. 

We wish we could give our fair readers a glance at a Chinese 
Wistaria in our grounds, as it looked last April. It covered the 
side of a small cottage completely. If they will imagine a space of 
10 by 20 feet, completely draped with Wistaria shoots, on which 
hung, thick as in a flower pattern, at least 500 clusters of the most 
delicate blossoms, of a tint between pearl and lilac, each bunch of 
bloom shaped like that of a locust tree, but eight inches to a foot 
long, and most gracefully pendant from branches just starting into 
tender green foliage ; if, we say, they could see all this, as we saw it, 



92 HORTICULTURE. 

and not utter exclamations of delight, then tliey deserve to be classed 
with those Avomen of the nineteenth century, who are thoroughly 
" fit for sea-captains." 

For a cottage climber, that will take care of itself better than 
almost any other, and embower door and windows with rich foliage 
and flowers, take the common Boiusault Rose. Long purplish 
shoots, foliage always fresh and abundant, and bright purplish 
blossoms in June, as thick as stars in a midnight sky, — all belong 
to this plant. Perhaps the richest and prettiest Boursault, is the 
one called by the nurserymen Amadis, or Elegans ; the flower a 
bright cherry-color, becoming crimson purple as it fades, with a 
delicate stripe of white through an occasional petal. 

There are two very favorite climbers that belong properly to 
the middle States, as they are a little tender, and need protection 
to the North or East. One of them is the Japan Honeysuckle 
(Lonicera jajmnica, or flexuosa*) ; the species with very dark, half 
evergi-een leaves, and a profusion of lovely delicate white and fawn- 
colored blossoms. It is the queen of all honeysuckles for cottage 
walls, or veranda pillars ; its foliage is always so rich ; it is entirely 
free from the white aphis (which is the pest of the old sorts), and it 
blooms (as soon as the plant gets strong) nearly the whole summer, 
affording a perpetual feast of beauty and fragance. The other, is 
the Sweet-scented Clematis (C. Jiammula), the very type of deli- 
cacy and grace, whose flowers are broidered like pale stars over the 
whole vine in midsummer, and whose perfume is the most spiritual, 
impalpable, and yet far-spreading of all vegetable odors. 

All the honeysuckles are beautiful in the garden, though none 
of them, except the foregoing, and what are familiarly called the 
" trumpet honeysuckles," are fit for the walls of a cottage, because 
they harbor insects. Nothing, however, can Avell be prettier than 
the Red and Yellow Trumpet Honeysuckles, when planted together 
and allowed to interweave their branches, contrasting the delicate 
straw-color of the flower tubes of one, with the deep coral-red hue of 
those of the other ; and they bloom with a welcome prodigality from 
April to December. 

* The " Chinese twiuiiig," of some ffardens. 



ON THE DRAPERY OF COTTAGES AND GARDENS. 93 

Where you want to produce a bold and picturesque effect with 
a vine, nothing will do it more rapidly and completely than our 
native grapes. They are precisely adapted to the porch of the farm- 
house, or to cover any building, or part of a building, where expres- 
sion of strength rather than of delicacy is sought after. Then you 
will find it easy to smooth away all objections from the practical 
soul of the farmer, by offering him a prospect of ten bushels of fine 
Isabella or Catawba grapes a year, which you, in your innermost 
heart, do not value half so much as five or ten months of beautiful' 
drapery ! 

Next to the grape-vine, the boldest and most striking of hardy 
vines is the Dutchman's pipe [Aristolochia sipho). It is a grand 
twining climber, and will canopy over a large arbor in a sh^rt time, 
and make a shade under it so dense that not a ray of pure sunshine 
will ever find its way through. Its gigantic circular leaves, of a 
rich green, form masses such as delight a painter's eye, — so broad 
and effective are they ; and as for its flowers, which are about an 
inch and a half long, — why, they are so like a veritable meer- 
schaum — the pipe of a true Dutchman from "Faderland" — that you 
cannot but laugh outright at the first sight of them. Whether 
Daphne was truly metamorphosed into the sweet flower that bears 
her name, as Ovid says, we know not ; but no one can look at the 
blossom of the Dutchman's pipe vine, without being convinced that 
nature has punished some inveterately lazy Dutch smoker by turning 
him into a vine, which loves nothing so well as to bask in the warm 
sunshine, with its hundred pipes, dangling on all sides. 

And now, having glanced at the best of the climbers and 
twiners, properly so called (all of which need a little training and 
supporting), let us take a peep at those climbing shrubs that seize 
hold of a wall, building, or fence, of themselves, by throwing out 
their little rootlets into the stone or brick wall as they grow up, so 
that it is as hard to break up any attachments of theirs, when they get 
fairly established, as it was to part Hector and Andromache. The 
principal of these are the true Ivy of Europe, the Virginia Creeper, 
or American Ivy, and the " Trumpet Creepers " [Bignonias or Teco- 
mas). 

These are all fine, picturesque vines, not to be surpassed for cer- 



94 HORTICULTURE. 

tain eflfects by any thing else that -will grow out of doors in our cli- 
mate. You must remember, however, that, as they are wedded for 
life to whatever they cling to, they must not be planted by the sides 
of wooden cottages, which are to be kept in order by a fresh coat 
of paint now and then. Other climbers may be taken down, and 
afterwards tied back to their places ; but constant, indissoluble inti- 
macies like these must be let alone. You will therefore always take 
care to plant them Avhere they can fix themselves permanently on a 
wall of some kind, or else upon some rough wooden building, where 
they will not be likely to be disturbed. 

Certainly the finest of all this class of climbers is the European 
Ivy. Such rich masses of glossy, deep gTeen foliage, such fine con- 
trasts of light and shade, and such a wealth of associations, is pos- 
sessed by no other plant ; the Ivy, to which the ghost of all the 
storied past alone tells its tale of departed greatness ; the confidant 
of old ruined castles and abbeys ; the bosom companion of solitude 
itself, — 

" Deep in your most sequestered bower 
Let me at last recline, 
"Where solitude, mild, modest flower, 
Leans on her ivy'd shrine." 

True to these instincts, the Ivy does not seem to be naturalized 
so easily in America as most other foreign vines. We are yet too 
young — this country of a great future, and a little past. 

The richest and most perfect specimen of it that we have seen, 
in the northern States, is upon the cottage of Washington Irving, 
on the Hudson, near Tarrytown. He, who as you all know, lingers 
over the past vnth a reverence as fond and poetical as that of a pious 
Crusader for the walls of Jerusalem — yes, he has completely won the 
sympathies of the Ivy, even on our own soil, and it has garlanded 
and decked his antique and quaint cottage, " Sunnyside," till its 
windows peep out from amid the wealth of its foliage, like the dark 
eyes of a Spanish Senora from a shadowy canopy of dark lace and 
darker tresses. 

The Ivy is the finest of climbers, too, because it is so perfectly 
evergreen. North of New-York it is a little tender, and needs to be 



ON THE DRAPERY OF COTTAGES AND GARDENS. 95 

sheltered for a few years, unless it be planted on a north wall, quite 
out of the reach of the winter sun) ; and north of Albany, we think 
it will not grow at all. But all over the middle States it should be 
planted and cherished, wherever there is a wall for it to cling to, as 
the finest of all cottage drapery. 

After this jjlant, comes always our Virginia Creeper, or American 
Ivy, as it is often called {^Ampelopsis). It grows more rapidly than 
the Ivy, clings in the same way to wood or stone, and makes rich 
and beautiful festoons of verdure in summer, dying off in autumn, 
before the leaves fall, in the finest crimson. Its greatest beauty, on 
this account, is perhaps seen when it runs up in the centre of a dark 
cedar, or other evergreen, — exhibiting in October the richest conti-ast 
of the two colors. It will grow any where, in the coldest situations, 
and only asks to be planted, to work out its own problem of beauty 
without further attention. This and the European Iv)'- are the two 
climbers, above all others, for the exteriors of our rural stone 
churches ; to which they will give a local interest greater than that 
of any carving in stone, at a millionth part of the cost. 

The common Trumpet Creeper all of you know by heart. It is 
rather a wild and rambling fellow in its habits ; but nothing is bet- 
ter to cover old outside chimneys, stone out-buildings, and rude walls 
and fences. The sort with large cup-shaped flowers {Tecoma grandi- 
flora), is a most showy and magnificent climber in the middle 
States, where the winters are moderate, absolutely glowing in July 
with its thousands of rich orange-red blossoms, like clusters of 
bright goblets. 

We might go on, and enumerate dozens more of fine twining 
shrubs and climbing roses ; but that would only defeat our present 
object, which is not to give you a garden catalogue, but to tell you 
of half a dozen hardy shrubby vines, which we implore you to make 
popular ; so that wherever we travel, from Maine to St. Louis, we 
shall see no rural cottages shivering in their chill nudity of bare walls 
or barer boards, but draped tastefully with something fresh, and 
green, and graceful : let it be a hop-vine if nothing better, — but 
roses, and wistaria, and honeysuckles, if they can be had. How 
much this apparently trifling feature, if it could be generally carried 
out, would alter the face of the whole country, you will not at once 



96 HORTICULTURE. 

be able to believe. What summer foliage is to a naked forest, what 
rich tufts of ferns are to a rock in a woodland dell, what " hya- 
cinthine locks " are to the goddess of beauty, or wings to an angel, 
the drapery of climbing plants is to cottages in the country. 

One word or two about vines in the gardens and pleasure- 
grounds before we conclude. How to make arbors and trellises is 
no mystery, though you will, no doubt, agree with us, that the less 
formal and the more rustic the better. But how to manage single 
specimens of fine climbers, in the lawn or garden, so as to display 
them to the best advantage, is not quite so clear. Small fanciful 
frames are pretty, but soon want repairs ; and stakes, though ever 
so stout, Avill rot oft' at the bottom, and blow down in high winds, to 
your great mortification ; and that, too, perhaps, when your plant 
is in its very court dress of bud and blossom. 

Now the best mode of treating single vines, when you have not 
a tree to festoon them upon, is one which many of you will be able 
to attain easily. It is nothing more than getting from the woods 
the trunk of a cedar-tree, from ten to fifteen feet high, shortening-in 
all the side branches to within two feet of the trunk (and still 
shorter near the top), and setting it again, as you would a post, two 
or three feet deep in the ground.* 

Cedar is the best ; partly because it will last for ever, and partly 
because the regular disposition of its branches forms naturally a fine 
trellis for the shoots to fasten upon. 

Plant your favorite climber, whether rose, wistaria, or honey- 
suckle, at the foot of this tree. It will soon cover it, from top to 
bottom, with the finest pyramid of verdure. The young shoots will 
ramble out on its side branches, and when in full bloom, will hang 
most gracefully or picturesquely ti-om the ends. 

The advantage of this mode is that, once obtained, your sup- 
port lasts for fifty years ; it is so firm that winds do not blow it 
down ; it presents every side to the kindly influences of sun and air, 

* We owe this hint to Mr. Alfred Smith, of Newport, a most intelligent 
and successful amateur, in whose garden we first saw fine specimens of this 
mode of treating climbei's. 



ON THE DRAPERY OF COTTAGES AND GARDEN'S. 



97 



and permits every blossom that opens, to be seen by the admiring 
spectator. How it looks at first, and afterwards, in a complete state, 
we have endeavored to give you a faint idea in this little sketch. 
" What shall those of 

/I 



lis do who have neither 
cottages nor gardens ? — 
who, in short, are confined 
to a little front and back 
yard of a town life, and 
yet who love vines and 
climbing plants with all 
our hearts ? " 

That is a hard case, 
truly. But, now we think 
of it, that ingenious and 
clever horticiilteur, Mon- 
sieur Van Houtte, of Ghent, 
has contrived the very thing 
for you.* Here it is. He 
calls it a "Trellis Mobile;" 
and if we mistake not, it 
■will be quite as valuable 
for the ornament and de- 
fence of cities, as the Garde 
Mobile of the Parisians. It 
is nothing more than a 
good strong wooden box, 
upon wooden rollers. The box is about three feet long, and the 
double trellis may be eight or ten feet high. In this box the finer 
soils of exotic climbers, such as passion flowers, everblooming roses, 
maurandias, ipomea learii, and the like, may be grown with a 
charming eftect. Put upon wheels, as this itinerant bower is, it 
may be transported, as Mr. Van Houtte says, " wherever fancy dic- 
tates, and even into the apartments of the house itself." And here, 
having fairly escoi-ted you back to your apartments, after our long 




Movable Trellis. 



* Flore des Serves. 



98 



HORTICULTURE. 



talk about out-door drapery, we leave you to examine the Trellin 
Mobile^ and wish you a good morning. 




Climbing Plants on Cedar Trunks. 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



i 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



I. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF RURAL TASTE. 

August, 1849. 

ALL travellers agree, that while the English people are far from 
being remarkable for their taste in the arts generally, they are 
unrivalled in their taste for landscape gardening. So completely is 
this true, that wherever on the continent one folds a garden, con- 
spicuous for the taste of its design, one is certain to learn that it 
is laid out in the " English style," and usually kept by an English 
gardener. 

Not, indeed, that the south of Europe is wanting in magnificent 
gardens, which are as essentially national in their character as the 
parks and pleasure-grounds of England. The surroundings of the 
superb villas of Florence and Rome, are fine examples of a species 
of scenery as distinct and striking as any to be found in the world ; 
but which, however splendid, fall as far below the English gardens 
in interesting the imagination, as a level plain does below the 
finest mountain valley in Switzerland. Li the English landscape 
garden, one sees and feels every where the spirit of nature, only 
softened and refined by art. In the French or Italian garden, 
one sees and feels only the effects of art, slightly assisted by nature. 
In one, the free and luxuriant growth of every tree and shrub, the 
widening and curving of every walk, suggests perhaps even a higher 
5 



102 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

ideal of nature, — a miniatui-e of a primal paradise, as we would 
imagine it to have been by divine right ; in tlie other, the prodi- 
gality of works of art, the variety of statues and vases, terraces and 
balustrades, united with walks marked by the same studied symme- 
try and artistic formality, and only mingled with just foliage enough 
to constitute a garden, — all this suggests rather a statue gallery in 
the open air, — an accompaniment to the fair architecture of the 
mansion, than any pure or natural ideas of landscape beauty. 

The only writer who has ever attempted to account for this 
striking distinction of national taste in gardening, which distin- 
guishes the people of northern and southern Europe, is Humboldt. 
Tn his last great work — Cosmos — he has devoted some pages to the 
consideration of the study of nature, and the description of natural 
scenery, — a portion of the work in the highest degree interesting to 
every man of taste, as well as every lover of nature. 

In this portion he shows, we think, very conclusively, that cer- 
tain races of mankind, however great in other gifts, are deficient in 
their perceptions of natural beauty ; that northern nations possess 
the love of nature much more strongly than those of the south ; 
and that the Greeks and Romans, richly gifted as they were Avith 
the artistic endowments, were inferior to other nations in a profound 
feeling of the beauty of nature. 

Humboldt also shows that our enjoyment of natural landscape 
gardening, which many suppose to have originated in the cultivated 
and refined taste of a later age, is, on the contrary, purely a matter 
of national organization. The parks of the Persian monarchs, and 
the pleasure-gardens of the Chinese, were characterized by the same 
spirit of natural beauty which we sec in the English landscape gar- 
dens, and which is widely distinct from that elegant formality of 
the geometric gardens of the Greeks and Romans of several centu- 
ries later. To prove how sound were the principles of Chinese taste, 
ages ago, he gives us a quotation from an ancient Chinese writei", 
Lieu-tscheu, which might well be the text of the most tasteful im- 
prover of the present day, and which we copy for the study of our 
own readei-s. 

" What is it," says Lieu-tscheu, " that we seek in the pleasures 
<if a garden ? It has always been agreed that these plantations 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF RURAL TASTE. 103 

should make men amends for living at a distance from what ivould 
be their more congenial and agreeable dwelling-place — in the midst 
of nature, free and unconstrained. The art of laying out gardens 
consists, therefore, in combining cheerfulness of prospect, luxuriance 
of growth, shade, retirement and repose ; so that the rural aspect 
may produce an illusion. Variety, which is the chief merit in the 
natural landscape, must be sought by the choice of ground, with 
alternation of hill and dale, flowing streams and lakes, covered with 
aquatic plants. Symmetry is ivearisome ; and a garden where 
every thing betrays constraint and art, becomes tedious and distaste- 
ful:' 

We shall seek in vain, in the treatises of modern writers, for a 
theory of rural taste more concise and satisfactory than this of the 
Chinese landscape garden. 

Looking at this instinctive love of nature as a national charac- 
teristic, which belongs almost exclusively to distinct races, Hum- 
boldt asserts, that while the " profoundest feeling of nature speaks 
forth in the earliest poetry of the Hebrews, the Indians, and the Se- 
mitic and Indo-Germanic nations, it is comparatively wanting in 
the works of the Greeks and Eomans." 

" In Grecian art," says he, " all is made to concentrate within 
the sphere of human life and feeling. The description of nature, in 
her manifold diversity, as a distinct branch of poetic literature, was 
altogether foreign to the ideas of the Greeks. With them, the 
landscape is always the mere background of a picture, in the fore- 
ground of which human figures are moving. Passion, breaking 
forth in action, invited their attention almost exclusively ; the agita- 
tion of politics, and a life passed chiefly in public, withdrew men's 
minds from enthusiastic absorption in the tranquil pursuit oi 
nature." 

On the other hand, the poetry of Britain, from a very early 
period, has been especially remarkable for the deep and instinctive 
love of natural beauty which it exhibits. And here lies the explana- 
tion of the riddle of the superiority of English taste in rural embel- 
lishment ; that people enjojHing their gardens the more as they 
embodied the spirit of nature, while the Italians, like the Greeks, 
enjoyed them the more as they embodied the spirit of ait. 



104 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

The Romans, tried in the alembic of the great German savan, 
are found still coldei- in their love of nature's charms than the 
Greeks. "A nation which manifested a marked predilection for 
agricultui-e and rural life might have justified other hopes; but 
with all their capacity for practical acti\dty, the Romans, in their 
cold gravity and measured sobriety of understanding, were, as a 
people, far inferior to the Greeks in the perception of beauty, far 
less sensitive to its influence, and much more devoted to the reali- 
ties of every-day life, than to an idealizing contemplation of 
nature." 

Judging them by their wiitings, Humboldt pronounces the great 
Roman writers to be comparatively destitute of real poetic feeling 
for nature. Livy and Tacitus show, in their histories, little or no in- 
terest in natural scenery. Cicero describes landscape without poetic 
feeling. Pliny, though he rises to true poetic .inspiration when de- 
scribing the great moving causes of the natural universe, " has few 
individual descriptions of nature." Ovdd, in his exile, saw little to 
charm him in the scenery around him ; and Virgil, though he often 
devoted himself to subjects which prompt the enthusiasm of a lover 
of nature, rarely glows with the fire of a true worshipper of her mys- 
terious charms. And not only were the Romans indifierent to the 
beauty of natural landscape which daily surrounded them, but even 
to the sublimity and magnificence of those wilder and grander 
scenes, into which their love of conquest often led them. The fol- 
lowing striking paragraph, from Humboldt's work, is at once elo- 
quent and convincing on this point : 

" No description of the eternal snows of the Alps, when tinged 
in the morning or evening with a rosy hue, — of the beauty of the 
blue glacier ice, or of any part of the grandeur of the scenery in 
Switzerland, — have reached us from the ancients, although states- 
men and generals, with men of letters in their train, were constantly 
passing from Helvetia into Gaul. All these travellers think only of 
complaining of the difficulties of the way ; the romantic character 
of the scenery seems never to have engaged their attention. It is 
even known that Julius Cjesar, when returning to his legions, in 
Gaul, employed his time while passing over the Alps in preparing a 
grammatical treatise, ' De Analogia.' " 



THE PHILOSOrHY OF RURAL TASTE. 105 

The corollary to be drawn from this learned and curious investi- 
gation of the history of national sensibility and taste, is a very clear 
and satisfactory one, viz., that as success, in " the art of composing 
a landscape" (as Humboldt significantly calls landscape-gardening), 
depends on appreciation of nature, the taste of an individual as well 
as that of a nation, will be in direct proportion to the profound sen- 
sibility with which he perceives the Beautiful in natural scenery. 

Our own observation not only fully confirms this theory, but it 
also leads us to the recognition of the fact, that among our country- 
men, at the present day, there are two distinct classes of taste in 
rm-al art ; first, the poetic or northern taste, based on a deep, in- 
stinctive feeling for nature ; and second, the artistic or symmetric 
taste, based on a perception of the Beautiful, as embodied in works 
of art. 

The larger part of our countrymen inherit the northern or Anglo- 
Saxon love of nature, and find most delight in the natural landscape 
garden ; but we have also not a few to whom the classic villa, with 
its artistic adornments of vase and statue, urn and terrace, is an ob- 
ject of much more positive pleasure than the most varied and seduc- 
tive gardens, laid out with all the witchery of nature's own handi- 
work. 

It is not part of our philosophy to urge our readers to war against 
their organizations, to whichever path, in the " Delectable Mountains," 
they may be led by them ; but those who have not already studied 
Cosmos will, we trust, at least thank us for giving them the key to 
their natural bias towards one or the other of the two world-wide 
styles of ornamental gardening. 



11. 

THE BEAUTIFUL IN GROUND. 

March, 1852. 

WE have sketched, elsewhere, the elements of the beautiful in a 
tree. Let us glance for a few moments at the beautiful in 
ground. 

We may have readers who think themselves not devoid of some 
taste for nature, but who have never thought of looking for beauty 
in the mere surface of the earth — whether in a natural landscape, 
or in ornamental grounds. Their idea of beauty is, for the most 
part, attached to the foliage and verdure, the streams of water, the 
high hills and the deep valleys, that make up the landscape. A 
meadow is to them but a meadow, and a ploughed field is but the 
same thing in a rough state. And yet there is a gTeat and endur- 
ing interest, to a refined and artistic eye, in the mere siuface of the 
ground. There is a sense of pleasure awakened by the pleasing lines 
into which yonder sloping bank of turf steals away from the eye, 
and a sense of ugliness and harshness, by the raw and broken out- 
line of the abandoned quarry on the hill-side, which hardly any one 
can be so obtuse as not to see and feel. Yet the finer gradations 
are nearly overlooked, and the charm of beautiful suiface in a lawn 
is seldom or never considered in selecting a new site or improving 
an old one. 

We believe artists and men of taste have agreed that all 
forms of acknowledged beauty are composed of curved lines ; and 
we may add to this, that the more gentle and gradual the curves, 
or rather, the farther they are removed from those hard and forcible 



THE BEAUTIFUL IN GROUND. 107 

lines which denote violence, the more beautiful are they. The prin- 
ciple applies as well to the surface of the earth as to other objects. 
The most beautiful shape in gTound is that where one undulation 
melts gradually and insensibly into another. Every one who has 
observed scenery where the foregi'ounds were remarkable for beauty, 
must have been struck by this prevalence of curved lines ; and every 
landscape gardener well knows that no grassy surface is so captiva- 
ting to the eye, as one where these gentle swells and undulations 
rise and melt away gradually into one another. Some poet, happy 
in his fancy, has called such bits of grassy slopes and swells, " earth's 
smiles ;" and when the effect of the beauty and form of outline is 
heightened by the pleasing gradation of light and shade, caused by 
the sun's light, variously reflected by such undulations of lawn, the 
simile seems strikingly appropriate. With every change of position 
the outlines vary, and the lights and shades vary with them, so that 
the eye is doubly pleased by the beauty of form and chiaro-oscuro, 
in a lawn with gracefully undulating surface. 

A flat or level surface is considered beautiful by many persons, 
though it has no beauty in itself. It is, in fact, chiefly valued because 
it evinces art. Though there is no positive beauty in a straight or 
level line, it is often interesting as expressive oi power, and we feel as 
much aAved by the boundless prairie or desert, as by the lofty snow-cap- 
ped hill. On a smaller scale, a level surface is sometimes agreeable 
in the midst of a rude and wild country by way of contrast, as a 
small, level garden in the Alps will sometimes attract one astonish- 
ingly, that would be passed by, unnoticed, in the midst of a flat and 
cultivated country. 

Hence, as there are a thousand men who value power, where 
there is one who can feel beauty, we see all ignorant persons who 
set about embellishing their pleasure-grounds, or even the site for 
a home, immediately commence levelling the surface. Once brought 
to this level, improvement can go no further, according to their 
views, since to subjugate or level, is the whole aim of man's am- 
bition. Once levelled, you may give to grounds, or even to a whole 
landscape, according to their theory, as much beauty as you like. It 
is only a question of expense. 

This is a fearful fallacy, however ; fearful, oftentimes, to both the 



108 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

eye and the purse. If a dead level were the thing needful to con- 
stitute beauty of surface — then all Holland would be the Arcadia 
of Landscape Painters ; and while Claude, condemned to tame Italy, 
would have painted the interior of inns, and groups of boors drink- 
ing (vide the Dutch School of Art), Teniers, living in the dead level 
of his beautiful nature, would have bequeathed to the world pictures 
of his native land, full of the loveliness of meadows smooth as a 
carpet, or enlivened only by pollard willows and stagnant canals. 
It is not the less fearful to see, as we have often seen in this country, 
where new places are continually made, a finely varied outline of 
ground utterly spoiled by being graded for the mansion and its sur- 
rounding lawn, at an expense which would have curved all the 
walks, and filled the grounds with the finest trees and shrubs, if their 
surface had been left nearly or quite as nature formed it. Not much 
better, or even far worse, is the foolish fancy many persons have of 
terracing every piece of sloj^ing ground — as a mere matter of orna- 
ment, where no terrace is needed. It may be pretty safely said, that 
a terrace is always ugly, unless it is on a large scale, and is treated 
with dignity, so as to become part of the building itself, or more 
properly be supposed to belong to it than to the gi'ounds — like the 
fine, architectural terraces which surround the old English mansions. 
But little gardens thrown up into terraces, are devoid of all beauty 
whatever — though they may often be rendered more useful or avail- 
able in this way. 

The surface of ground is rarely ugly in a state of nature — 
because all nature leans to the beautiful, and the constant action of 
the elements goes continually to soften and wear away the harshness 
and violence of surface. What cannot be softened, is hidden and 
rounded by means of foliage, trees and shrubs, and creeping vines, 
and so the tendency to the curve is always greater and greater. But 
man often forms ugly surfaces of ground, by breaking up all natural 
curves, without recognizing their expression, by distributing lumps 
of earth here and there, by grading levels in the midst of undulations, 
and raising mounds on perfectly smooth surfaces ; in short, by re- 
garding only the little he wishes to do in his folly, and not studying 
the larger part that nature has already done in her wisdom. As a 
common, though accidental illustration of this, we may notice that 
the mere routine of tillage on a farm, has a tendency to destroy nat- 



THE BEAUTIFUL IN GROUND. 109 

ural beauty of sui-ftxce, by ridging up the soil at the outsides of the 
field, and thus breaking up that continuous flow of line which de- 
lights the eye. 

Our object in these remarks, is simply to ask our readers to think 
in the beginning, before they even commence any improvements on 
the surface of ground which they wish to embellish — to think in 
what natural beauty really consists, and whether in grading, they are 
not wasting money, and losing that which they are seeking. It 
will be better still, if they will consider the matter seriously, when 
they are about buying a place, since, as we have before observed, no 
money is expended with so little to show for it, and so little satisfac- 
tion, as that spent in changing the original surface of the ground. 

Practically — the rules we would deduce are the following : To 
select, always, if possible, a surface varied by gentle curves and un- 
dulations. If something of this character already exists, it may 
often be greatly heightened or improved at little cost. Very often, 
too, a nearly level surface may, by a very trifling addition — only 
adding a few inches in certain points, be raised to a character of 
positive beauty — by simply following the hints given by nature. 

When a surface is quite level by nature, we must usually con- 
tent oui-selves with trusting to planting, and the arrangement of 
walks, buildings, &c., to produce beauty and variety ; and we would 
always, in such cases, rather expend money in introducing beautiful 
vases, statues, or other works of positive artistic merit, than to ter- 
race and unmake what character nature has stamped on the ground. 

Positively ugly and forbidding surfaces of ground, may be ren- 
dered highly interesting and beautiful, only by changing their char- 
acter, entirely, by planting. Such ground, after this has been done, 
becomes only the skeleton of the fair outside of beauty and verdure 
that covers the forbidding original. Some of the most picturesque 
ravines and rocky hill-sides, if stripped entirely of their foliage, 
would appear as ugly as they were before beautiful ; and while this 
may teach the improver that there is no situation that may not be 
rendered attractive, if the soil will yield a growth of trees, shrubs, 
and vines, it does not the less render it worth our attention in choos- 
ing or improving a place, to examine carefully beforehand, in what 
really consists the Beautiful in ground, and whether we should lose 
or gain it in our proposed improvements. 



Ill 

HINTS TO RURAL IMPROVERS. 

July, 1848. 

ONE of the most striking proofs of the progress of refinement, in 
the United States, is the rapid increase of taste for ornamental 
gardening and rural embellishment in all the older portions of the 
northern and middle States. 

It cannot be denied, that the tasteful improvement of a country 
residence is both one of the most agreeable and the most natural 
recreations that can occupy a cultivated mind. With all the interest 
and, to many, all the excitement of the more seductive amusements 
of society, it has the incalculable advantage of fostering only the 
purest feelings, and (unlike many other occupations of business men) 
refining, instead of hardening the heart. 

The great German poet, Goethe, says — 

" Happy the man who hath escaped the town, 
Him did an angel bless when he was born." 

This apostrophe was addressed to the devotee of country life as a 
member of a class, in the old world, where men, for the most part, 
are confined to certain walks of life by the limits of caste, to a de- 
gree totally unknown in this country. 

With us, country life is a leading object of nearly all men's de- 
sires. The wealthiest merchant looks upon his country-seat as the 
best ultimatum of his laborious days in the counting-house. The 
most indefatigable statesman dates, in his retirement, from his "Ash- 
land," oi- his " Lindenwold." Webster has his " Marshfield," where 



HINTS TO RURAL IMPROVERS. Ill 

his scientific agTiculture is no less admirable than his profound elo- 
quence in the Senate. Taylor's well-ordered plantation is not less 
significant of the man, than the battle of Buena Vista. Washing- 
ton Irving's cottage, on the Hudson, is even more poetical than any 
chapter of his Sketch Book ; and Cole, the greatest of our landscape 
painters, had his rui-al home under the very shadow of the Catskills. 

This is well. In the United States, nature and domestic life are 
better than society and the manners of towns. Hence all sensible 
men gladly escape, earlier or later, and partially or wholly, from the 
tnrmoil of the cities. Hence the dignity and value of country life 
is every day augmenting. And hence the enjoyment of landscape 
or ornamental gardening — which, when in pure taste, may properly 
be called a more refined hind of nature, — is every day becoming 
more and more widely diftused. 

Those who are not as conversant as ourselves with the statistics 
of horticulture and rural architecture, have no just idea of the rapid 
multiplication of pretty cottages and villas in many parts of North 
America. The vast web of railroads which now interlaces the con- 
tinent, though really built for the purposes of trade, cannot wholly 
escape doing some duty for the Beautiful as well as the Useful. 
Hundreds and thousands, formerly obliged to live in the crowded 
streets of cities, now find themselves able to enjoy a country cottage, 
several miles distant, — the old notions of time and space being half 
annihilated ; and these suburban cottages enable the busy citizen to 
breathe freely, and keep alive his love for nature, till the time shall 
come when he shall have wrung out of the nervous hand of com- 
merce enough means to enable him to realize his ideal of the " re- 
tired life" of an American landed proprietor. 

The number of our country residences which are laid out, and 
kept at a high point of ornamental gardening, is certainly not very 
large, though it is continually increasing. But Ave have no hesita- 
tion in saying that the aggregate sum annually expended in this 
way for the last five years, in North America, is not exceeded in any 
country in the world save one. 

England ranks before all other countries in the perfection of its 
landscape gardening ; and enormous, almost incredible sums have 
been expended by her wealthier class upon their rural improvements. 



112 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

But the taste of England is, we have good reasons for beheving, at 
its maxiininn ; and the expenditure of the aristocracy is, of late, 
<;hieHy de\'oted to hcepinri up the existing style of their parks and 
pleasure-grounds. In this country, it is quite surprising how rapid 
is the creation of new country residences, and how large is tlie ag- 
gregate amount continually expended in the construction of houses 
and grounds, of a character more or less ornamental. 

Granting all this, it cannot be denied that there are also, in the 
United States, large sums of money — many millions of dollars — 
annually, most unwisely and injudiciously expended in these rural 
improvements. While we gladly admit that there has been a sur- 
prising and gratifying advance in taste within the last ten years, we 
are also forced to confess that there are countless sjjecimens of had 
taste, and hundreds of examples where a more agreeable and satis- 
factory result might have been attained at one-half the cost. 

Is it not, therefore, worth while to inquire a little more definitely 
what are the obstacles that lie in the way of forming satisfactory, 
tasteful, and agreeable country residences ? 

The common reply to this question, when directly put in the face 

of any signal example of failure is — " Oh, Mr. is a man of no 

taste ! " There is, undoubtedly, often but too much truth in this 
clean cut at the (esthetic capacities of the unlucky improver. But 
it by no means follows that it is always true. A man may have 
taste, and yet if he trusts to his own powers of direction, signally 
fail in tasteful improvements. 

We should say that two grand errors are the fertile causes of 
all the failures in the rural improvements of the United States at the 
present moment. 

The first error lies in supposing that good taste is a natural gift, 
which springs heaven-born into perfect existence — needing no culti- 
vation or improvement. The second is in supposing that taste alone 
is sufficient to the production of extensive or complete works in 
architecture or landscape gardening. 

A lively sensibility/ to the Beaujtiful, is a natural faculty, mistaken 
by more than half the world for good taste itself. But good taste, 
in the true meaning of the terms, or, more strictly, correct taste, 
only exists where sensibility to the Beautiful, and good judgment, 



HINTS TO RURAL IMPROVERS. 113 

are combined in the same mind. Thus, a person may have a deU- 
cate organization, -which will enable him to receive pleasure from 
every thing that possesses grace or beauty, but with it so little power 
of discrimination as to be unable to select among many pleasino- 
objects, those which, under given circumstances, are the most beauti- 
ful, harmonious, or fitting. Such a person may be said to have na- 
tural sensibility, or fine perceptions, but not good taste ; the latter 
belongs properly to one who, among many beautiful objects, rapidlv 
compares, discriminates, and gives due rank to each, according to 
its merit. 

Now, although that delicacy of organization, usually called taste, 
is a natural gift, which can no more be acquired than hearing can 
be by a deaf man, yet, in most j^ersons, this sensibility to the Beau- 
tiful may be cultivated and ripened into good taste by the study and 
comparison of beautiful productions in nature and art. 

This is precisely what we wish to insist upon, to all persons 
about to commence rural embellishments, who have not a cultivated 
or just taste ; but only sensibility, or what they would call a natural 
taste. 

Three-fourths of all the building and ornamental gardening of 
America, hitherto, have been amateur performances — often the pro- 
ductions of persons who, with abundant natural sensibility, have 
taken no pains to cultivate it and form a correct, or even a good 
taste, by studying and comparing the best examples already in 
existence in various parts of this or other countries. Now the 
study of the best productions in the fine arts is not more necessary 
to the success of the young painter and sculptor than that of build- 
ings and grounds to the amateur or professional improver, who 
desires to improve a country residence well and tastefully. In both 
cases comparison, discrimination, the use of the reasoning faculty, 
educate the natural delicacy of perception into taste, more or less 
just and perfect, and enable it not only to arrive at Beauty, but to 
select the most beautiful for the end in view. 

There are at the present moment, without going abroad, oppor- 
tunities of cultivating a taste in landscape-gardening, quite sufficient 
to enable any one of natural sensibility to the Beautiful, combined 
with good reasoning powers, to arrive at that point which may be 
8 



114 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

<ionsidered good taste. There are, indeed, few persons wlio are 
aware how instructive and interesting to an amateur, a visit to all 
the finest country residences of the older States, would be at the 
present moment. The study of books on taste is by no means to be 
neglected by the novice in rural embellishment ; but the practical 
illustrations of different styles and principles, to be found in the best 
cottage and villa residences, are fer more convincing and instruc- 
tive to most minds, than lessons taught in any other mode what- 
liver. 

We shall not, therefore, hesitate to commend a few of the most 
interesting places to the study of the tasteful improver. By the 
expenditure of the necessary time and money to examine and com- 
pare thoroughly such places, he will undoubtedly save himself much 
unnecessary outlay ; he will be able to seize and devclope many 
beauties which would otherwise be overlooked ; and, most of all, he 
will be able to avoid the exhibition of that crude and uncultivated 
taste, which characterizes the attempts of the majority of beginners, 
who rather know how to enjoy beautiful grounds than how to go to 
work to produce them. 

For that species of suburban cottage or villa residence which is 
most frequent within the reach of persons of moderate fortunes, the 
i^nvirons of Boston aiford the finest examples in the Union. Averag- 
ing from five to twenty acres, they are usually laid out with taste, 
are well planted with a large variety of trees and shrubs, and above 
all, are exquisitely kept. As a cottage ornee, there are few places 
in America more perfect than the grounds of Colonel Perkins, or of 
Thos. Lee, Esq., at Brookline, near Boston. The latter is especially 
I'emarkable for the beauty of the lawn, and the successful manage- 
ment of rare trees and shrubs, and is a most excellent study for the 
suburban landscape-gardener. There are many other places in that 
neighborhood abounding with interest ; but the great feature of the 
gardens of Boston lies rather in their horticultural than their artis- 
tical merit. In forcing and skilful cultivation, they still rank before 
any other of the country. Mr. Cushing's residence, near Wateitown, 
has long been celebrated in" this respect. 

An amateur who wishes to study trees, should visit the fine old 
places in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. A couple of days spent 



HINTS TO RURAL IMPROVERS. 115 

at the Bartram Garden, the Hamilton Place, and many of the old 
estates bordering the Schuylkill, will make him familiar with rare 
and fine trees, such as Salisbiirias, Magnolias, Vin/Uias, etc., of a size 
and beauty of growth that will not only fill him with astonishment, 
hut convince him what effects may be produced by planting. As 
a specimen of a cottage residence of the first class, exquisitely kept, 
there are also few examples in America more perfect than Mi's. 
Oamac's grounds, four or five miles from Philadelphia. 

For landscape gardening, on a large scale, and in its best sense, 
there are no places in America which compare with those on the 
east bank of the Hudson, between Hyde Park and the town of 
Hudson. The extent of the grounds, and their fine natural advan- 
tages of wood and lawn, combined with their gTand and beautiful 
views, and the admirable manner in which these natural charms 
are heightened by art, place them far before any other residences in 
the United States in picturesque beauty. In a strictly horticultural 
sense, they are, perhaps, as much inferior to the best places about 
Boston as they are superior to them in the beauty of landscape gar- 
dening and picturesque effect. 

Among these places, those which enjoy the highest reputation, 
are Montgomery/ Place, the seat of Mrs. Edward Livingston, Blithe- 
wood, the seat of R. Donaldson, Esq., and Hyde Park, the seat of 
W. Langdon, Esq. The first is remarkable for its extent, for the 
wonderful variety of scenery — wood, water, and gardenesque — which 
it embraces, and for the excellent general keeping of the grounds. 
The second is a fine illustration of great natural beauty, — a mingling 
of the graceful and grand in scenery, — admirably treated and 
heightened by art. Hyde Park is almost too well known to need 
more than a passing notice. It is a noble site, greatl)^ enhanced in 
interest lately, by the erection of a fine new mansion. 

The student or amateur in landscape gardening, who wishes to 
examine two places as remarkable for breadth and dignity of effect 
as any in America, will not fail to go to the Livingston Manor, seven 
miles east of Hudson, and to Bensselaerwyck, a few miles from 
Albany, on the eastern shore. The former has the best kept and 
most extensive lawn in the Union ; and the latter, with five or six 
miles of gravelled walks and drives, w ithin its own boundaries, ex- 



116 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

hibits some of the cleverest illustrations of practical skill in laying 
out grounds that we remember to have seen.* 

If no person, about to improve a country residence, would ex- 
pend a dollar until he had visited and carefully studied, at least 
twenty 2ylaces of the character of these which we have thus pointed 
out, we think the number of specimens of bad taste, or total want 
of taste, would be astonishingly diminished. We could point to 
half a dozen examples within our own knowledge, where ten days 
spent by their proprietors in examining what had already been done 
in some of the best specimens of building and gardening in the 
country, could not but have prevented tlu^ir proprietors from mak- 
ing their places absolutely hideous, and throwing away ten, twenty, 
or thirty thousand dollars. Ignorance is not bliss, nor is it econo- 
my, in improving a country-seat. 

We think, also, there can scarcely be a question that an exam- 
ination of the best examples of taste in rural improvement at 
home, is far more instructive to an American, than an inspection of 
the finest country places in Europe ; and this, chiefly, because a 
really successful example at home is based upon republican modes 
of life, enjoyment, and expenditure, — which are almost the reverse 
of those of an aristocratic government. For the same reason, we 
think those places most instructive, and best worthy general study 
in this country, which realize most completely our ideal of refined 
country life hi America. To do this, it is by no means necessary to 
have baronial possessions, or a mansion of vast extent. No more 
should be attempted than can be done well, and in perfect harmony 
with our habits, mode of life, and domestic institutions. Hence, 
smaller suburban residences, like those in the neighborhood of Bos- 
ton, are, perhaps, better models, or studies for the public generally, 
than our grander and more extensive seats ; mainly because they 
are more expressive of the means and character of the majority of 

* We should apologize for thus pointing out private places, did we not 
know that the liberal proprietors of those just named, are persons who take 
the liveliest interest in the progress of good taste, and will cheerfully allow 
their places to be examined by those who visit them with such motives as 
we here urge, — very different from idle curiosity. 



HINTS TO RURAL IMPROVERS. 11 V 

those of our countrymen whose intelligence and refinement lead 
them to find their happiness in country life. It is better to attempt 
a small place, and attain perfect success, than to fail in one of 
greater extent. 

Having pointed out what we consider indispensable to be done, 
to assist in forming, if possible, a correct taste in those who have 
only a natural delicacy of organization, which they miscall taste, we 
may also add that good taste, or even a perfect taste, is often by 
no means sufficient for the production of really extensive works of 
rural architecture or landscape-gardening. 

" Taste," says Cousin, in his Philosophy of the Beautiful, " is a 
faculty indolent and passive ; it reposes tranquilly in the contem- 
plation of the Beautiful in Nature. Genius is proud and free ; ge- 
nius creates and reconstructs." 

He, therefore (whether as amateur or professor), who hojjes to 
be successful in the highest degi-ee, in the arts of refined building or 
landscape-gardening, must possess not only taste to appreciate the 
Beautiful, but genius to produce it. Do we not often see persons 
who have for half their lives enjoyed a reputation for coiTCct taste, 
suddenly lose it when they attempt to embody it in some practical 
manner ? Such persons have only the " indolent and passive," and 
not the " free and creative faculty." Yet there are a thousand little 
offices of supervision and control, where the taste alone may be ex- 
ercised with the happiest results upon a country place. It is by no 
means a small merit to prevent any violations of good taste, if we 
cannot achieve any great work of genius. And we are happy to 
be able to say that we know many amateurs in this country who 
unite with a refined taste a creative genius, or practical ability to 
carry beautiful improvements into execution, which has already 
enriched the country with beautiful examples of rural residences ; 
and we can congratulate ourselves that, along with other traits of 
the Anglo-Saxon mind, we have by no means failed in our inherit- 
ance of that fine appreciation of rural beauty, and the power of de- 
veloping it, which the English have so long possessed. 

We hope the number of those who are able to enjoy this most 
refined kind of happiness will every day grow more and more nu- 



118 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

merous ; and mat it may do so, we are confident we can give no 
better advice than again to commend beginners, before they lay a 
corner stone, or plant a tree, to visit and study at least a dozen 
or twenty of the acknowledged best specimens of good taste in 
America, 



lY. 



A FEW HINTS ON LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

November, 1851. 

NOVEMBER is, above all others, the tree-planting month ovei- 
the wide Union. Accordingly, every one Avho has a rood of 
land, looks about him at this season, to see what can be done to im- 
prove and embellish it. Some have bought new places, where the}- 
have to build and create every thing in the way of home scenery, 
and they, of course, will have their heads full of shade trees and 
fruit trees, ornamental shrubs and evergreens, lawns and walks, and 
will tax their imagination to the utmost to see in the future all the 
varied beauty which they mean to work out of the present blank 
fields that they have taken in hand. These, look for the most rapid- 
growing and eiTective materials, with which to hide their nakedness, 
and spread something of the drapery of beauty over their premises, 
in the shortest possible time. Others, have already a goodly stock 
of foliage and shade, but the trees have been planted without taste, 
and by thinning out somewhat here, making an opening there, and 
planting a little yonder, they hope to break up the stiff boundai'ies, 
and thus magically to convert awkward angles into graceful curves, 
and harmonious outlines. Whilst others, again, whose gardens and 
pleasure-grounds have long had their earnest devotion, are busy turn-, 
ing over the catalogues of the nurseries, in search of rare and curious 
trees and shrubs, to add still more of novelty and interest to their 
favorite lawns and walks. As the pleasure of creation may be sup- 
posed to be the highest pleasure, and as the creation of scenery in 
landscape gardening is the nearest approach to the matter that we 



120 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

<;an realize in a practical way, it is not difficult to see that Novem- 
ber, dreary as it may seem to the cockneys who have rushed back 
to gas-lights and the paved streets of the city, is full of interest, and 
even excitement, to the real lover of the country. 

It is, however, one of the characteristics of the human mind to 
overlook that which is immediately about us, however admirable, 
and to attach the greatest importance to whatever is rare, and diffi- 
cult to be obtained. A remarkable illustration of the truth of this, 
may be found in the ornamental gardening of this country, which is 
noted for the strongly marked features made in its artificial scenery 
by certain poorer sorts of foreign trees, as well as the almost total 
neglect of finer native materials, that are indigenous to the soil. 
We wdll undertake to say, for example, that almost one-half of all 
the deciduous trees that have been set in ornamental plantations for 
the last ten years, have been composed, for the most part, of two 
very indifferent foreign trees — the ailantus and the silv(3r poplar. 
When we say inditi'erent, we do not mean to say that such trees as 
the ailantus and the silver poplar, are not valuable trees in their 
way — that is, that they are rapid growing, will thrive in all soils, and 
are transplanted with the greatest facility — suiting at once both the 
money-making grower and the ignorant planter — but we do say, 
that when such trees as the American elms, maples and oaks, can 
be raised with so little trouble — trees as full of grace, dignity, and 
beauty, as any that grow in any part of the world — trees, too, that 
go on gathering new beauty with age, instead of thro^ving up suck- 
ers that utterly spoil lawns, or that become, after the first few years, 
only a more intolerable nuisance every day — it is time to protest 
against the indiscrin:iinate use of such sylvan materials — no matter 
how much of " heavenly origin," or " silvery " foliage, they may have 
in their well sounding names. 

It is by no means the fault of the nurserymen, that their nurse- 
ries abound in ailantuses and poplars, while so many of our fine 
forest trees are hardly to be found. The nurserymen are bound to 
pursue their business so as to make it profitable, and if people ignore 
oaks and ashes, and adore poplars and ailantuses, nurserymen can- 
not be expected to starve because the planting public generally are 
destitute of taste. 



A FEW HINTS ON LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 121 

What the planting public need is to have their attention called 
to the study of nature — to be made to understand that it is in our 
beautiful woodland slopes, with their undulating outlines, our broad 
river meadows studded with single trees and groups allowed to grow 
and expand quite in a state of fi-ee and graceful development, our 
steep hills, sprinkled with picturesque pines and firs, and our deep 
valleys, dark with hemlocks and cedars, that the real lessons in the 
beautiful and picturesque are to be taken, which will lead us to the 
appreciation of the finest elements of beauty in the embellishment of 
our country places — instead of this miserable rage for " trees of 
heaven" and other fashionable tastes of the" like nature. There are, 
for example, to be found along side of almost every sequestered lawn 
by the road-side in the northern States, three trees that are strikingly 
remarkable for beauty of foliage, growth or flower, viz. : the tulip- 
tree, the sassafras, and the pepperidge. The first is, for stately 
elegance, almost unrivalled among forest trees : the second, when 
planted in cultivated soil and allowed a fair chance, is more beauti- 
ful in its diversified laurel-like foliage than almost any foreign tree 
in our pleasure-grounds : and the last is not surpassed by the orange 
or the bay in its glossy leaves, deep green as an emerald in summer, 
and rich red as a ruby in autumn — and all of them freer from the 
attacks of insects than either larches, lindens, or elms, or a dozen 
other favorite foreign trees, — besides being unafifected by the summer 
sun where horse-chestnuts are burned brown, and holding their foli- 
age through all the season like native-born Americans, when foreign- 
ers shrivel and die ; and yet we could name a dozen nurseries where 
there is a large collection of ornamental trees of foreign growth, but 
neither a sassafras, nor a pepperidge, nor perhaps a tulip-tree could 
be had for love or money. 

There is a large spirit of inquiry and a lively interest in rural 
taste, awakened on every side of us, at the present time, from Maine 
to the valley of the Mississippi — but the great mistake made by most 
novices is that they study gardens too much, and nature too little. 
Now gaidens, in general, are stifi" and graceless, except just so far as 
nature, ever free and flowing, re-asserts her rights, in spite of man's 
want of taste, or helps him when he has endeavored to work in lier 
own spirit. But the fields and woods are full of instruction, and in 



122 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

such features of our richest and most smiling and diversified country 
must the best hints for the embelHshment of rural homes always be 
derived. And yet it is not any portion of the woods and fields that 
we wish our finest pleasure-ground scenery precisely to resemble. 
We rather wish to select from the finest sylvan features of nature, 
and to recompose the materials in a choicer manner — by rejecting 
any thing foreign to the spirit of elegance and refinement which 
should characterize the landscape of the most tasteful country resi- 
dence — a landscape in which all that is graceful and beautiful in 
nature is preserved — all her most perfect forms and most harmoni- 
ous lines — but with that added refinement which high keeping and 
continual care confer on natural beauty, without impairing its innate 
spirit of freedom, or the truth and freshness of its inti-insic charactei'. 
A planted elm of fifty years, which stands in the midst of the smooth 
lawn before yonder mansion — its long graceful branches towering 
upwards like an antique classical vase, and then sweeping to the 
ground Avith a curve as beautiful as the falling spray of a fountain, 
has all the freedom of character of its best prototypes in the wild 
woods, with a refinement and a perfection of symmetry which it 
would be next to impossible to find in a wild tree. Let us take it 
then as the type of all true art in landscape gardening — which selects 
from natural materials that abound in any country, its best sylvan 
features, and by giving them a better opportunity than they could 
otherwise obtain, bring-s about a higher beauty of development and 
a more perfect expression than nature itself ofters. Study landscape 
in nature more, and the gardens and their catalogues less, — is our 
advice to the rising generation of planters, who wish to embellish 
their places in the best and purest taste. 



V. 



ON THE MISTAKES OF CITIZENS IN COUNTRY LIFE. 

January, 1849. 
"VTO one loves the country more sincerely, or welcomes new de- 
-L ' votees to the Avorship of its pui'e altars more warmly, than 
ourselves. To those who bring here hearts capable of understand- 
ing the lessons of truth and beauty, which the Good Creator has 
written so legibly on all his works ; to those in whose nature is im- 
planted a sentiment that interprets the tender and the loAang, as well 
as the grand and sublime lessons of the universe, what a life full of 
joy, and beauty, and inspiration, is that of the country ; to such, 

"The deep recess of dusky groves, 

Or forest where the deer securely roves. 

The fall of waters and the song of birds, 

And hills that echo to the distant herds, 

Are luxuries, excelling all the glare 

The world can boast, and her chief fav'rites share." 

There are those who rejoice in our Anglo-Saxon inheritance of 
the love of conquest, and the desire for boundless territory, — who 
exult in the " manifest destiny " of the race, to plant the standard 
of the eagle or the lion in every soil, and every zone of the earth's 
surface. We rejoice much more in the love of country life, the en- 
joyment of nature, and the taste for rural beauty, which we also 
inherit from our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and to which, more than 
all else, they owe so many of the peculiar virtues of the race. 

With us, as a people, retirement to country life, must come to 



124 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

be the universal pleasure of the nation. The successful statesman, 
professional man, merchant, trader, mechanic, — all look to it as the 
only way of enjoying the otium cum dignitate ; and the great 
beauty and extent of our rural scenery, as well as the absence of any 
great national capital, with its completeness of metropolitan life, 
must render the country the most satisfactory place for passing a 
part of every man's days, who has the power of choice. 

It is not to be denied, however, that " retirement to the country," 
which is the beau ideal of all the busy and successful citizens of our 
towns, is not always found to be the elysium which it has been 
fondly imagined. No doubt there are good reasons why nothing in 
this world should afford perfect and uninterrupted happiness. 

" The desire of the moth for the star " 

might cease, if parks and pleasure-grounds could fill up the yearn- 
ings of human nature, so as to leave no aspirations for futurity. 

But this is not our present meaning. What we would say is, 
that numbers are disappointed with country life, and perhaps leave 
it in disgust, without reason, either from mistaken views of its na- 
ture, of their own incapacities for enjoying it, or a want of practical 
ability to govern it. 

We might throw our views into a more concrete shape, perhaps, 
by saying that the disappointments in country life arise chiefly from 
two causes. The first is, from expecting too much. The second, from 
undertaking too muck. 

There are, we should judge from observation, many citizens who 
retire to the country, after ten or twenty years' hard service in the 
business and society of towns, and who carry with them the most 
romantic ideas of country life. They expect to pass their time in 
wandering over daisy-spangled meadows, and by the side of mean- 
dering streams. They will listen to the singing of birds, and find 
a perpetual feast of enjoyment in the charm of hills and mountains. 
Above all, they have an extravagant notion of the purity and the 
simpHcity of country life. All its intercourse, as well as all its plea- 
sures, are to be so charmingly pure, pastoral, and poetical ! 

What a disappointment to find that there is p^'ose even in coun- 



ON THE MISTAKES OF CITIZENS IN COUNTRY LIFE. 125 

tiy life, — that meadows do not give up their sweet incense, or corn- 
fields wave their rich harvests without care, — that " work-folks " are 
often unfaithful, and oxen stubborn, even an hundred miles from the 
smoke of towns, or the intrigues of great cities. 

Another, and a large class of those citizens, who expect too much 
in the country, are those who find, to their astonishment, that the 
country is dull. They really admire nature, and love rural life ; but, 
though they are ashamed to confess it, they are " bored to death," 
and leave the country in despair. 

This is a mistake which gi-ows out of their want of knowledge 
of themselves, and, we may add, of human nature generally. Man 
is a social^ as well as a reflective and devout being. He must have 
friends to share his pleasures, to sympathize in his tastes, to enjoy 
with him the delights of his home, or these become wearisome and 
insipid. Cowper has well expressed the want of this large class, and 
their suftering, when left wholly to themselves ; — 

" I praise the Frenchman, liis remark was shrewd, — 
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! 
Btit give me still a friend, in my retreat. 
Whom I may whisper — Kolittide is sweet. 

The mistake made by this class, is that of thinking only of the 
beauty of the scenery where they propose to reside, and leaving out 
of sight the equal charms of good society. To them, the latter, 
both by nature and habit, is a necessity, not to be wholly waived for 
converse of " babbling brooks." And since there are numberless 
localities where one may choose a residence in a genial and agree- 
able country neighborhood, the remedy for this species of discontent 
is as plain as a pike-staff. One can scarcely expect friends to follow 
one into country seclusion, if one will, for the sake of the picturesque, 
settle on the banks of the Winipissiogee. These latter spots are for 
poets, artists, naturalists ; men, between whom and nature there is 
an intimacy of a wholly different kind, and who find in the struc- 
ture of a moss or the flight of a water fowl, the text to a whole 
volume of inspiration. 

The third class of the disappointed, consists of those who are 
astonished at the cost of life in the countiy. They left town not only 



126 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

tbi" the healthful breezes of the hill-tops, but also to make a small 
income do the business of a large one. To their great surprise, they 
find the country dear. Every thing they grow on their land costvS 
them as much as when bought (because they produce it with hired 
labor) ; and every thing they do to improve their estate, calls for a 
mint of money, because with us labor is always costly. But, in fact, 
the great secret of the matter is this ; they have brought as many as 
possible of their town habits into the country, and find that a mo- 
derate income, applied in this way, gives less here than in town. To 
live economically in the country, one must adopt the rustic habits 
of country life. Labor must be understood, closely watched, and 
even shared, to give the farm products at a cost likely to increase 
the income ; and pat^s defoie p'as, o\ perigord pies must be given up 
for boiled mutton and turnips. (And, between them and us, it is not 
so difficult as might be imagined, when the mistress of the house is 
a woman of genius, to give as refined an expression to country life 
with the latter as the former. The way of doing things is, in these 
matters, as important as the means.) 

Now a word or two, touching the second source of e^^l in coun- 
try life, — undertaking too much. 

There is, apparently, as much fascination in the idea of a large 
landed estate as in the eye of a serpent. Notwithstanding our in- 
stitutions, our habits, above all the continual distribution of our 
fortunes, every thing, in short, teaching us so plainly the folly of 
improving large landed estates, human nature and the love of dis- 
tinction, every now and then, triumph over all. What a homily 
might there not be written on the extravagance of Americans ! 
We can point at once to half a dozen examples of country resi- 
dences, that have cost between one and two hundred thousand dol- 
lars ; and every one of which either already has been, or soon will 
be, enjoyed by others than those who constructed them. This is 
the great and glaring mistake of our wealthy men, ambitious of 
taste, — that of supposing that only by large places and great expen- 
ditures can the problem of rural beauty and enjoyment be solved. 
Tlie truth is, that with us, a large fortune does not and cannot (at 
least at the present time) produce the increased enjoyment which it 
does abroad. Large estates, large houses, large establishments, 



ON THE MISTAKES OF CITIZENS IN COUNTRY LIFE. 127 

only make slaves of their possessors ; for the service, to be done 
daily by those who must hold aloft this dazzling canopy of wealth, 
is so indifferently performed, servants are so time-serving and un- 
worthy in this country, where intelligent labor finds independent 
channels for itself, that the lord of the manor finds his life overbur- 
dened with the drudgery of watching his drudges. 

Hence, the true philosophy of living in America, is to be found 
in moderate desires, a moderate establishment, and moderate expen- 
ditures. We have seen so many more examples of success in those 
of even less moderate size, that we had almost said, with Cowley 
" a little cheerful house, a little company, and a very little feast." 

But among those who undertake too much, by far the largest 
class is that whose members do so through ignorance of what is to 
be done. 

Although the world is pretty well aware of the existence of pro- 
fessional builders and planters, still the majority of those who build 
and plant, in this country, do it without the advice of experienced 
persons. There is, apparently, a latent conviction at the bottom of 
every man's heart, that he can build a villa or a cottage, and lay 
out its grounds in a more perfect, oi-, at least, a much more satisfac- 
toiy manner than any of his predecessors or contemporaries. Fatal 
delusion ! One may plead his own case in law, or even Avrite a lay 
sermon, like Sir Walter Scott, with more chance of success than he 
will have in realizing, in solid walls, the perfect model of beauty and 
convenience that floats dimly in his head. We mean this to apply 
chiefly to the production as a work of art. 

As a matter of economy, it is still worse. If the improve)- 
selects an experienced architect, and contracts with a responsible 
and trustworthy builder, he knows within twenty per cent., at the 
farthest, of what his edifice will cost. If he undertakes to play the 
amateur, and corrects and revises his work, as most amateurs do, 
while the house is in progress, he will have the mortification of 
paying twice as much as he should have done, without any just sat- 
isfaction at last. 

What is the result of this course of proceeding of the new resi- 
dent in the country ? That he has obtained a large and showy 
house, of which, if he is alive to improvement, he will live to regret 



128 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

the bad taste ; and tliat he has laid the foundation of expenditures 
far beyond liis income. 

He finds himself now in a dilemma, of which there are two 
horns. One of them is the necessity of laying out and keeping up 
large pleasure-grounds, gardens, &c., to correspond to the style and 
character of his house. The other is to allow the house to remain 
in the midst of beggarly surroundings of meadow and stubble ; or, 
at the most, with half executed and miserably kept grounds on 
every side of it. 

Nothing can be more unsatisfactory than either of these posi- 
tions. If he is seduced into expenditures en grand seigneur, to keep 
up the style in which the mansion or villa has been erected, he 
finds that instead of the peace of mind and enjoyment which he 
expected to find in the country, he is perpetually nervous about the 
tio"ht place in his income, — constantly obliged to make an eftbrt to 
maintain that which, when maintained, gives no more real pleasure 
than a residence on a small scale. 

If, on the other hand, he stops short, like a prudent man, at the 
mighty show of figures at the bottom of the builder's accounts, 
and leaves all about in a crude and unfinished condition, then he 
has the mortification, if possessed of the least taste, of knowing that 
all the grace with which he meant to surround his country home, 
has eluded his grasp ; that he lives in the house of a noble, set in 
the fields of a sluggard. This he feels the more keenly, after a 
walk over the grounds of some wiser or more fortunate neighbor, 
who has been able to sweep the whole circle of taste, and better ad- 
vised, has realized precisely that which has escaped the reach of 
our unfortunate improver. Is it any marvel that the latter should 
find himself disappointed in the pleasures of a country life ? 

Do we thus portray the mistakes of country life in order to dis- 
suade persons from retiring ? Far from it. There is no one who 
would more willingly exhibit its charms in the most glowing colors. 
But we would not lure the traveller into an Arcadia, without telling 
him that there are not only golden fruits, but also others, which 
may prove Sodom-apples if ignorantly plucked. We would not 
hang garlands of flowers over dangerous pits and fearful chasms. It 
is rather our duty and pleasure loudly to warn those who are likely 



ON THE MISTAKES OF CITIZENS IN COUNTRY LIFE. 129 

to fall into such errors, and to open their eyes to the danger that 
lies in their paths ; for the country is really full of interest to those 
who are fitted to understand it ; nature is full of beauty to those 
who approach her simply and devoutly ; and rural life is full of pure 
and happy influences, to those who are wise enough rightly to ac- 
cept and enjoy them. 

What most retired citizens need, in country life, are objects of 
real interest, society, occupation. 

We place first, something of permanent interest ; for, after all, 
this is the great desideratum. All men, with the fresh breath of the 
hay-fields of boyhood floating through their memory, fancy that 
farming itself is the grand occupation and panacea of country life. 
This is a profound error. There is no permanent interest in any 
pursuit which we are not successful in ; and farming, at least in the 
older States, is an art as diflficult as navigation. We mean by this, 
profitable farming, for there is no constant satisfaction in any other; 
and though some of the best farmers in the Union are retired citi- 
zens, yet not more than one in twenty succeeds in making his land 
productive. It is well enough, therefore, for the citizen about retir- 
ing, to look upon this resoui'ce with a little diffidence. 

If our novice is fond of horticulture, there is some hope for him. 
In the first place, if he pursues it as an amusement, it is inexhausti- 
ble, because there is no end to new fruits and flowers, oi- to the combina- 
tions which he may produce by their aid. And besides this, he need 
not draw heavily on his banker, or purchase a w^hole township to 
attain his object. Only grant a downright taste for fruits and flowers, 
and a man may have occupation and amusement for years, in an 
hundred feet square of good soil. 

Among the happiest men in the country, as we have hinted, are 
those who find an intense pleasure in nature, either as artists or nat- 
uralists. To such men, there is no weariness ; and they should 
choose a country residence, not so much with a view to what can 
be made by improving it, as to where it is, what gi'and and beautiful 
scenery sun-ounds it, and how much inspiration its neighborhood 
will offer them. 

Men of society, as we have already said, should, in settling in 
the country, never let go the cord that binds them to their fellows. 
9 



130 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

A suburban country life will most nearly meet their requirements ; 
or, at least, tbey should select a site where some friends of congenial 
minds have already made a social sunshine in the "wilderness of 
woods and forests." 

Above all, we should counsel all persons not to underrate the 
cost of building and improving in the country. Do not imagine 
that a villa, or even a cottage ornee, takes care of itself. If you 
wish for rural beauty, at a cheap rate, either on the grand or the 
moderate scale, choose a spot where the two features of home scenery 
are trees and grass. You may have five hundred acres of natural 
park — that is to say, fine old woods, tastefully opened, and threaded 
with walks and drives, for less cost, in preparation and annual out- 
lay, than it will require to maintain five acres of artificial pleasure- 
grounds. A pi'etty little natural glen, filled with old trees and made 
alive by a clear perennial stream, is often a cheaper and more un- 
wearying source of enjoyment than the gayest flower-garden. Not 
that we mean to dis2:)arage beautiful parks, pleasure-grounds, or 
flower-gardens ; we only wish our readers about settling in the coun- 
try to understand that they do not constitute the highest and most 
expressive kind of rural beauty, — as they certainly do the most ex- 
pensive. 

It is so hard to be content with simplicity ! Why, we have 
seen thousands expended on a few acres of ground, and the result 
was, after all, only a showy villa, a green-house, and a flower-garden, 
— not half so captivating to the man of true taste as a cottage em- 
bosomed in shrubbery, a little park filled with a few fine trees, a lawn 
kept short by a flock of favorite sheep, and a knot of flowers woven 
gayly together in the green turf of the terrace under the parlor Avin- 
dows. But the man of wealth so loves to astonish the admiring 
world by the display of riches, and it is so rare to find those who 
comprehend the charm of grace and beauty in their simple dress ! 



VI. 



CITIZENS RETIRING TO THE COUNTRY. 

February, 1852. 

IN a fomier volume we offered a few words to our readers on the 
subject of choosing a country-seat. As the subject was only 
slightly touched upon, we propose to say something more regarding 
it now. 

There are few or no magnificent country-seats in America, if we 
take as a standard such residences as Chatsworth, Woburn, Blen- 
heim, and other well known English places — ^with parks a dozen 
miles round, and palaces in their midst larger than our largest pub- 
lic buildings. But any one who notices in the suburbs of our towns 
and cities, and on the borders of our great rivers and railroads, in 
the older parts of the Union, the rapidity with which cottages and 
villa residences are increasing, each one of which costs from three, 
to thirty or forty thousand dollars, will find that the aggi'egate 
amount of money expended in American rural homes, for the last 
ten years, is perhaps larger than has been spent in any part of the 
world. Our Anglo-Saxon nature leads our successful business men 
always to look forward to a home out of the city ; and the ease with 
which freehold property may be obtained here, offers every encour- 
agement to the growth of the natural instinct for landed proprietor- 
ship. 

This large class of citizens turning country-folk, which every sea- 
son's revolution is increasing, which every successful business year 
greatly augments, and every fortune made in California helps to 
swell in number, is one wdiich, perhaps, spends its means more freely, 



132 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

and with more of the feeHiig of getting its full value, than any other 
class. 

But do they get its full value ? Are there not many who are 
disgusted Avith the country after a few years' trial, mainly because 
they find country places, and country life, as they have tried them, 
more expensive than a residence in town ? And is there not some- 
thing that may be done to warn the new beginners of the dangers 
of the voyage of pleasure on which they are about to embark, with 
the fullest faith that it is all smooth water ? 

We think so : and as we are daily brought into contact with 
precisely this class of citizens, seeking for and building country 
places, Ave should be glad to be able to ofier some useful hints to 
those who are not too wise to find them of value. 

Perhaps the foundation of all the miscalculations that arise, as to 
expenditure in forming a country residence, is, that citizens are in 
the habit of thinking every thing in the country cheap. Land in the 
town is sold by the foot, in the country by the acre. The price of a 
good house in town is, perhaps, three times the cost of one of the 
best farms in the country. The town buys every thing : the country 
raises every thing. To live on your own estate, be it one acre or a 
thousand, to have your own milk, butter and eggs, to raise your own 
chickens and gather your own strawberries, with nature to keep the 
account instead of your grocer and market-woman, that is something 
like a rational life ; and more than rational, it must be cheap. So 
argues the citizen about retiring, not only to enjoy his otium cum 
dignitate, but to make a thousand dollars of his income, produce 
him more of the comforts of life than two thousand did before. 

Well ; he goes into the country. He buys a farm (run down 
with poor tenants and bad tillage). He builds a new house, with 
his own ignorance instead of architect and master-builder, and is 
cheated roundly by those who take advantage of this masterly igno- 
rance in the matter of bricks and mortar ; or he repairs an old house 
at the full cost of a new one, and has an unsatisfactory dwelling for 
ever afterwards. He undertakes high farming, and knowing noth- 
ing of the practical economy of husbandry, every bushel of corn that 
he raises costs him the price of a bushel and a half in the market. 
Used in tOAvn to a neat and orderly condition of his premises, he Is 



CITIZENS RETIRING TO THE COUNTRY. 133 

disgusted with old tottering fences, half dr.ained fields and worn-oiit 
pastures, and employs all the laboring force of the neighborhood to 
put his grounds in good order. 

Now there is no objection to all this for its own sake. On the 
contrary, good buildings, good fences, and rich pasture fields ai-e 
what especially delight us in the country. What then is the reason 
that, as the country place gets to wear a smiling aspect, its citizen 
owner begins to look serious and unhappy ? Why is it that country 
life does not satisfy and content him ? Is the country^ which all 
poets and philosophers have celebrated as the Arcadia of this world, — 
is the country treacherous ? Is nature a cheat, and do seed-time 
and harvest conspire against the peace of mind of the retired citizen ? 

Alas ! It is a matter of money. Every thing seems to be a mat- 
ter of money now-a-days. The country life of the old world, of the 
poets and romancers, is cheap. The country life of our republic is 
dear. It is for the good of the many that labor should be high, and 
it is high labor that makes country life heavy and oppressive to such 
men — only because it shows a balance, increasing year after year, 
on the wrong side of the ledger. Here is the source of all the trou- 
ble and dissatisfaction in what may be called the country life of 
gentlemen amateurs, or citizens, in this country — " it don't pay." 
Land is cheap, nature is beautiful, the country is healthy, and all 
these conspire to draw our well-to-do citizen into the country. But 
labor is dear, experience is dearer, and a series of experiments in 
unprofitable crops the dearest of all ; and our citizen friend, himself, 
as we have said, is in the situation of a man who has set out on a 
delightful voyage, on a smooth sea, and with a cheeiful shiji's com- 
pany ; but who discovers, also, that the ship has sprung a leak — not 
large enough to make it necessary to call all hands to the pump — 
not large enough perhaps to attract any body's attention but his own, 
but quite large enough to make it certain that he must leave her or 
be swamped — and quite large enough to make his voyage a serious 
piece of business. 

Every thing which a citizen does in the country, costs him an in- 
credible sum. In Europe (heaven save the masses), you may have 
the best of laboring men for twenty or thirty cents a day. Here 
you must pay them a dollar, at least our amateur must, though the 



134 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

tkrrnoi's contrive to get their labor for eiglit or ten dollars a month 
and board. The citizen's home once built, he looks upon all heavy 
expenditures as over ; but how many hundreds — perhaps thousands, 
has he not paid for out-buildings, for fences, for roads, &c. Cutting 
down yonder hill, which made an ugly blotch in the view, — it 
looked like a trifling task ; yet there were $500 swept clean out of 
his bank account, and there seems almost nothing to show for it. 
You would not believe now that any hill ever stood there — or at 
least that natur<3 had not arranged it all (as you feel she ought to 
have done), just as you see it. Your favorite cattle and horses have 
died, and the flock of sheep have been sadly diminished by the dogs, 
all to be replaced — and a careful account of the men's time, labor 
and manure on the grain fields, shows that for some reason that you 
cannot understand, the crop — which is a fair one, has actually cost 
you a trifle more than it is woith in a good market. 

To cut a long story short, the larger part of our citizens who re- 
tire upon a farm to make it a country residence, are not aware of 
the fact, that capital cannot be profitably employed on land in the 
Atlantic States without a thoroughly practical knoioledge of farm- 
ing. A close and systematic economy, upon a good soil, may 
enable, and does enable some gentlemen farmers that we could 
name, to make a good profit out of their land — but citizens who 
launch boldly into farming, hiring farm laborers at high prices, and 
trusting operations to others that should be managed under the 
master's eye — are very likely to find their farms a sinking fund that 
will drive them back into business again. 

To be happy in any business or occupation (and countiy life on 
a farm is a matter of business), we must have some kind of success 
in it ; and there is no success without profit, and no profit without 
practical knowledge of farming. 

The lesson that we would deduce from these reflections is this ; 
that no mere amateur should buy a large farm for a country resi- 
dence, with the expectation of finding pleasure and profit in it for 
the rest of his life, unless, like some citizens that we have known — 
rare exceptions — they have a genius for all manner of business, and 
can master the whole of farming, as they would learn a running- 
hand in six easy lessons. Farming, in the older States, where the 



CITIZENS RETIRING TO THE COUNTRY. 13o 

natural wealtli of the soil has been exhausted, is not a profitable 
business for amateurs — but quite the reverse. And a citizen who 
has a sufficient income without farming, had better not damage it 
by engaging in so expensive an amusement. 

" But we must have something to do ; we have been busy near 
all our lives, and cannot retire into the country to fold our hands 
and sit in the sunshine to be idle." Precisely so. But you need 
not therefore ruin yourself on a large farm. Do not be ambitious 
of being great landed proprietors. Assume that you need occupation 
and. interest, and buy a small piece of ground — a few acres only — 
as few as you please — but without any regard for profit. Leave 
that to those who have learned, farming in a more practical school. 
You think, perhaps, that you can find nothing to do on a few acres 
of ground. But that is the greatest of mistakes. A half a dozen 
acres, the capacities of which are fully developed, will give you 
more pleasure than five hundred poorly cultivated. And the 
advantage for you is, that you can, upon your few acres, spend just 
as little or just as much as you please. If you wish to be prudent, 
lay out your little estate in a simple way, with gi-ass and trees, and 
a few walks, and a single man may then take care of it. If you 
wish to indulge your taste, you may fill it with shrubberies, and 
arboretums, and conservatories, and flower-gardens, till every tree 
and plant and fruit in the whole vegetable kingdom, of really 
superior beauty and interest, is in your collection. Or, if you wish 
to turn a penny, you will find it easier to take up certain fruits or 
plants and grow them to high perfection so as to command a profit 
in the market, than you will to manage the various operations 
of a large farm. We could point to ten acres of ground from which 
a larger income has been produced than from any farm of five hun- 
dred acres in the country. Gardening, too, offers more variety 
of interest to a citizen than farming ; its operations are less rude 
and toilsome, and its pleasures more immediate and refined. Citi- 
zens, ignorant of tarming, should, therefore, buy small places, rather 
than large ones, if they wish to consult their own true interest and 
happiness. 

But some of our readers, who have tried the thing, may say that 
it is a very expensive thing to settle oneself and get well established, 



13G LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

(iven on a small place in the countiy. And so it is, if we proceed 
upon the fallacy, as Ave have said, that every thing in the country is 
cheap. Labor is dear ; it costs you dearly to-day, and it will cost 
you dearly to-morrow, and the next year. Therefore, in selecting a 
site for a home in the country, always remember to choose a site 
where nature has done as much as possible for you. Don't say to 
yourself as many have done before you — " Oh ! I want occupation, 
and I rather like the new place — raw and naked though it may 
be. / will create a paradise for myself. I will cut down yonder 
lull that intercepts the view, I will level and slope more gracefully 
yonder rude bank, I will terrace this rapid descent, I will make a 
lake in yonder hollow." Yes, all this you may do for occupation, 
and find it very delightful occupation too, if you have the income 
of Mr. Astor. Otherwise, after you have spent thousands in creat- 
ing your paradise, and chance to go to some friend who has bought 
all the graceful undulations, and sloping lawns, and sheets of water, 
natural, ready made — as they may be bought in thousands of purely 
natural 23laces in America, for a few hundred dollars, it will give 
you a species of pleasure-ground-dyspepsia to see how foolishly you 
have wasted your money. And this, more especially, when you 
find, as the possessor of the most finished place in America finds, 
that he has no want of occupation, and that far from being finished, 
he has only begun to elicit the highest beauty, keeping and com- 
pleteness of which his place is capable. 

It would be easy to say a great deal more in illustration of the 
mistakes continually made by citizens going into the country; of 
their false ideas of the cost of doing every thing ; of the profits of 
f;irming ; of their own talent for making an income from the land, 
and their disappointment, growing out of a failure of all their theo- 
ries and expectations. But we have perhaps said enough to cause 
some of our readers about to take the step, to consider whether they 
mean to look upon country life as a luxury they are willing to pay 
so much a year for, or as a means of adding something to their 
incomes. Even in the former case, they are likely to underrate the 
cost of the luxury, and in the latter they must set about it with the 
frugal and industrial habits of the real farmer, or they will fail. The 
safest way is to attempt but a modest residence at first, and let 



CITIZENS RETIRING TO THE COUNTRY. 137 

the more elaborate details be developed, if at all, only when we 
have learned how much country life costs, and how far the expendi- 
ture is a wise one. Fortunately, it is art^ and not nature, which 
costs money in the country, and therefore the beauty of lovely 
scenery and fine landscapes (the right to enjoy miles of which may 
often be had for a trifle), in connection with a very modest and 
simple place, will give more lasting satisfaction than gardens and 
pleasure- gi'ounds innumerable. Persons of moderate means should, 
for this reason, always secure, in their fee simple, as much as possi- 
ble of natural beauty, and undertake the elaborate improvement of 
only small places, which will not become a burden to them. Million- 
naires, of course, we leave out of the question. They may do what 
they like. But most Americans, buying a country place, may take 
it for their creed, that 

Man wants but little land below, 
Nor wants that little dear. 



VII. 



A TALK ABOUT PUBLIC PARKS AND GARDENS. 

October, 1848. 

EDITOR. I am heartily glad to see you home agam; I almost 
fear, however, from your long residence on the continent, that 
}'ou have become a foreigner in all your sympathies. 

Traveller. Not a whit. I come home to the United States 
more thoroughly American than ever. The last few months' resi- 
dence in Europe, with revolutions, tumult, bloodshed on every side, 
people continually crying for liberty — who mean by that word, the 
privilege of being responsible to neither God nor governments — 
ouvriers, expecting wages to drop like manna from heaven, not as a 
reward for industry, but as a sign that the millennium has come ; 
republics, in which every other man you meet is a soldier, sworn to 
preserve " liberty, fraternity, equality," at the point of the bayonet ; 
from all this unsatisfactory movement — the more unsatisfactory be- 
cause its aims are almost beyond the capacities of a new nation, and 
entirely impossible to an old people — I repeat, I come home again 
to rejoice most fervently that " I, too, am an American^ 

Ed. After five years expatriation, pray tell me what strikes you 
most on returning ? 

Trav. Most of all, the wonderful, extraordinary, unparalleled 
growth of our country. It seems to me, after the general, steady, 
quiet torpor of the old world (which those great convulsions have 
only latterly broken), to be the moving and breathing of a robust 
young giant, compared Avith the crippled and feeble motions of an 
exhausted old man. Why, it is difficult for me to "catch up" to 



A TALK ABOUT PUBLIC PARKS AND GARDENS. 139 

my countrymen, or to bridge over the gap wliicli five years have 
made in the condition of things. From a country looked upon Avith 
contempt by monarchists, and hardly esteemed more than a third- 
rate power by republicans abroad, we have risen to the admitted 
first rank every where. To say, on the continent, now, that you are 
from the " United States," is to dilate the pupil of every eye with a 
sort of glad welcome. The gates of besieged cities open to you, 
and the few real republicans who have just conceptions of the ends 
of government, take you by the hand as if you had a sort of lib- 
erty-magnetism in your touch. A country that exports, in a single 
year, more than fifty-three millions worth of bread stuflfs, that con- 
quers a neighboring nation without any apparent expenditure of 
strength, and swallows up a deluge of foreign emigrants every 
season, — turning all that "raw material," by a sort of wonderful 
vital force, into good citizens, — such a country, I say, is felt to have 
au avoirdupois about it, that weighs heavily in the scale of nations. 

Ed. I am glad to see you so sound and patriotic. Very few 
men who go abroad, like yourself, to enjoy the art and antiquities 
of the old world, come home without " turned heads." The great- 
ness of the past, and the luxury and completeness of the present 
forms of civilization abroad, seize hold of them, to the exclusion of 
every thing else ; and they return home lamenting always and for 
ever the " purple and fine linen " left behind. 

Trav. " Purple and fine linen," when they clothe forms of life- 
less majesty, are far inferior, in the eyes of any sensible person, to 
linsey-woolsey, enwrapping the body of a free, healthy man. But 
there are some points of civilization — good points, too — that we do 
not yet understand, which are well understood abroad, and which 
are well worth attention here at home, at the present moment. In 
fact, I came here to talk a little, about one or two of these, to-day. 

Ed. Talk on, with all my heart. 

Trav. I dare say you will be surprised to hear me say that the 
French and Germans — difficult as they find it to be republican, in a 
political sense — are practically far more so, in many of the customs 
of social life, than Americans. 

Ed. Such as what, pray ? 

Trav. Public enjoyments, open to all classes of people, pro- 



140 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

vided at public cost, maintained at public expense, and enjoyed 
daily and hourly, by all classes of persons. 

Ed. Picture galleries, libraries, and the like, I suppose you al- 
lude to ? 

Trav. Yes ; but more especially at the present moment, I am 
thinking of public parks and gardens — those salubrious and 
wholesome breathing places, provided in the midst of, or upon the 
suburbs of so many towns on the continent — full of really grand 
and beautiful trees, fresh grass, fountains, and, in many cases, rare 
plants, shrubs, and flowei's. Public picture galleries, and even li- 
braries, are intellectual luxuries ; and though we must and will have 
them, as wealth accumulates, yet I look upon public parks and gar- 
dens, which are great social enjoyments, as naturally coming first. 
Man's social nature stands before his intellectual one in the order of 
cultivation. 

Ed. But these great public parks are mostly the appendages 
of royalty, and have been created for purposes of show and magni- 
ficence, quite incompatible with our ideas of republican simplicity. 

Trav. Not at all. In many places these parks were made for 
royal enjojrment ; but, even in these days, they are, on the continent, no 
longer held for royal use, but are the pleasure-grounds of the public 
generally. Look, for example, at the Garden of the Tuileries — spa- 
cious, full of flowers, green lawns, orange-trees, and rare plants, in 
the very heart of Paris, and all open to the public, without charge. 
Even in third-rate towns, like the Hague, there is a royal park of 
two hundred acres, filled with superb trees, rich turf, and broad 
pieces of water — the whole exquisitely kept, and absolutely and en- 
tirely at the enjoyment of every well-disposed person that chooses 
to enter. 

Ed. Still, these are not parks or gardens made for the public ; 
but are the result, originally, of princely taste, and afterwards given 
up to the public. 

TratJ. But Germany, which is in many respects a most instruc- 
tive country to Americans, affords many examples of public gar- 
dens, in the neighborhood of the principal towns, of extraordinary 
size and beauty, originally made and laid out solely for the general 
use. The public garden at Munich, for example, contains above five 



A TALK ABOUT PUBLIC PARKS AND GARDENS. 141 

hundred acres, originally laid out by the celebrated Count Rumford, 
with five miles of roads and walks, and a collection of all the trees 
and shrubs that will thrive in that country. It combines the beauty 
of a park and a garden. 

Ed. And Frankfort ? 

Trav. Yes, I was coming to that, for it is quite a model of this 
kind of civilization. The public garden of Frankfort is, to my mind, 
one of the most delightful sights in the world. Frankfort deserves, 
indeed, in this respect, to be called a " free town ; " for I doubt if we 
are yet ready to evince the same capacity for self-government and 
non-imposition of restraint as is shown daily by the good citizens 
of that place, in the enjoyment of this beautiful public garden. 
Think of a broad belt, about tiuo miles Icmg, surrounding the city 
on all sides but one (being built upon the site of the old ramparts), 
converted into the most lovely pleasure-grounds, intersected with all 
manner of shady walks and picturesque glades, planted not only 
with all manner of fine ti-ees and shrubs, but beds of the choicest 
flowers, roses, carnations, dahlias, verbenas, tuberoses, violets, &c., (fee. 

Ed. And well guarded, I suppose, by (/en-d''armcs, or the po- 
lice ! 

Trav. By no means. On the contrary, it is open to every 
man, woman, and child in the city ; there are even no gates at the 
various entrances. Only at these entrances are put up notices, 
stating that as the garden was made for the public, and is kept up 
at its expense, the town authorities commit it to the protection of all 
good citizens. Fifty thousand souls have the right to enter and en- 
joy these beautiful grounds ; and yet, though they are most tho- 
roughly enjoyed, you will no more see a bed trampled upon, or a 
tree injured, than in your own private garden here at home ! 

Ed. There is truly a democracy in that, worth imitating in our 
more professedly democratic country. 

Trav. Well, out of this common enjoyment of public grounds, 
by all classes, grows also a social freedom, and an easy and agi'eea- 
ble intercourse of all classes, that strikes an American with surprise 
and delight. Every afternoon, in the public grounds of the German 
towns, you will meet thousands of neatly-dressed men, women, and 
children. All classes assemble under the shade of the same trees, 



142 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

— the nobility (even the king is often seen among them), tlie 
wealthy citizens, the shopkeej^ers, and the artisans, &c. Tliere they all 
meet, sip their tea and cotiee, ices, or other refreshments, from tables 
in the open air, talk, walk about, and listen to bands of admirable 
music, stationed here and there throughout the park. In short, these 
great public grounds are the pleasant drawing-rooms of the whole 
population ; where they gain health, good spirits, social enjoyment, 
and a frank and cordial bearing towards their neighbors, that is 
totally unknown either in England or America. 

Ed. There appears a disinclination in the Anglo-Saxon race to 
any large social intercourse, or unrestrained public enjoyment. 

Trav. It is not difficult to account for such a feeling in Eng- 
land. But in this country, it is quite imworthy of us and our insti- 
tutions. With large professions of equality, I find my countrymen 
more and more inclined to raise up barriers of class, wealth, and 
fashion, which are almost as strong in our social usages, as the law 
of caste is in England. It is quite unworthy of us, as it is the 
meanest and most contemptible part of aristocracy ; and we owe it 
to ourselves and our republican professions, to set about establishing 
a larger and more fraternal spirit in our social life. 

Ed. Pray, how would you set about it ? 

Trav. Mainly by establishing refined public places of resort, 
parks and gardens, galleries, libraries, museums, &c. By these 
means, you would soften and humanize the rude, educate and en- 
lighten the ignorant, and give continual enjoyment to the educated. 
Nothing tends to beat down those artificial barriers, that false pride, 
which is the besetting folly of our Anglo-Saxon nature, so much as 
a community of rational enjoyments. Now there is absolutely no 
class of persons in this country whose means allow them the luxury 
of great parks, or fine concerts of instrumental music within their 
own houses. But a trifling yearly contribution from all the inhab- 
itants of even a small town, will enable all those inhabitants to have 
an excellent band, performing every fair afternoon through the 
whole summer. Make the public parks or pleasure-grounds attrac- 
tive by their lawns, fine trees, shady walks, and beautiful shrubs and 
flowers, by fine music, and the certainty of " meeting every body," 
and you draw the wdiole moving population of the town there daily. 

Ed. I am afi-aid the natural gene of our people would keep 



A TALK ABOUT PUBLIC PARKS AND GARDENS. 143 

many of those at home who would most enjoy such places, and that 
they would be given up to those who would abuse the privilege and 
despoil the grounds. Do you think it would be possible, for instance, 
to preserve fine flowers in such a place, as in Germany ? 

Trav. I have not the slightest doubt of it. How can I have, 
after going on board such magnificent steamboats as the Isaac New- 
ton or the Bay State, all fitted up with the same luxury of velvet 
ottomans, rich carpets, mirrors, and the costliest furniture, that I 
have found in palaces abroad, and all at the use of millions of every 
class of American travellers, from the chimney-sweep to the Presi- 
dent, and yet this profuse luxury not abused in the slightest manner ! 

Ed. But the more educated of our people — would they, think 
you, resort to public pleasure-grounds daily, for amusement ? Would 
not the natural exclusiveness of our better-halves, for instance, taboo 
this medley of " all sorts of people that we don't know ? " 

Trav. I trust too much in the good sense of our women to be- 
lieve it. Indeed, I find plenty of reasons for believing quite the op- 
posite. I see the public watering-places filled with all classes of so- 
ciety, partaking of the same pleasures, with as much zest as in any 
part of the world; and you must remember that there is wo forced 
intercourse in the daily reunions in a public garden or park. There 
is room and space enough for pleasant little groups or circles of all 
tastes and sizes, and no one is necessarily brought into contact with 
uncongenial spirits ; while the daily meeting of families, who ought 
to sympathize, from natural congeniality, will be more likely to bring 
them together than any other social gatherings. Then the advantage 
to our fair countrywomen in health and spirits, of exercise in the 
pure open air, amid the gi-oups of fresh foliage and flowers, in a 
chat with friends, and pleasures shared with them, as comjjared with 
a listless lounge upon a sofa at home, over the last new novel or 
pattern of embroidery ! When I first returned home, I assure you, 
I was almost shocked at the extreme delicacy, and apjjarent univer- 
sal want of health in my countrywomen, as compared with the same 
classes abroad. It is, most clearly, owing to the many sedentary, 
listless hours which they pass within doors; no oxit-of-dcor occupa- 
tions — walking considered irksome and fatiguing — and almost no 
parks, pleasure-grounds, or shaded avenues, to tempt fiiir pedestrians 
to this most healthful and natural exercise. 



144 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

Ed. Enough. I am fully satisfied of the benefits of these 
places of healthful public enjoyment, and of their being most com- 
pletely adapted to our institutions. But how to achieve them ? 
What do we find among us to warrant a belief that public parks, 
for instance, are within the means of our people ? 

Trav. Several things : but most of all, the condition of oui- 
public cemeteries at the present moment. Why, twenty years ago, 
such a thing as an embellished, rural cemetery, was unheard of in 
the United States ; and, at the present moment, we surpass all other 
nations in these beautiful resting-places for the dead. Greenwood, 
Mount Auburn, and Laurel Hill, are as much superior to the far- 
famed Pdre la Chaise of Paris, in natural beauty, ta.steful arrange- 
ment, and all that constitutes the charm of such a spot, as St. Peter's 
is to the Boston State House. Indeed, these cemeteries are the 
only places in the country that can give an imtravelled American 
any idea of the beauty of many of the public parks and gardens 
abroad. Judging from the crowds of people in carriages, and on 
foot, which I find constantly thronging Greenwood and Mount Au- 
burn, I think it is plain enough how much our citizens, of all classes, 
would enjoy public parks on a similar scale. Indeed, the only draw- 
back to these beautiful and highly kept cemeteries, to my taste, is 
the gala-day air of recreation they present. People seem to go there 
to enjoy themselves, and not to indulge in any serious recollections 
or regrets. Can you doubt that if our large towns had suburban 
jileasure-grounds, like Greenwood (excepting the monuments), where 
the best music could be heard daily, they would become the con- 
stant resort of the citizens, or that being so, they would tend to soften 
and allay some of the feverish unrest of business which seems to 
have possession of most Americans, body and soul ? 

Ed. But the modus operandi ? Cemeteries are, in a measure, 
private speculations ; hundreds are induced to buy lots in them from 
fashion or personal pride, besides those whose hearts arc touched by 
the beauiful sentiment which they involve ; and thus a lai'ge fund 
is produced, which maintains every thing in the most perfect order. 

Trav. Appeal to the public liberality. We subscribe hundreds 
of thousands of dollars to give food to the Irish, or to assist the 
needy inhabitants of a burnt-out city, or to send missionaries to 
South Sea Islands. Are there no dollars in the same generous 



A TALK ABOUT PUBLIC PARKS AND GARDENS. 145 

pockets for a public park, which shall be the great wholesome 
breathing zone, social mass-meeting, and grand out-of-door concert- 
room of all the inhabitants daily ? Make it praiseworthy and laud- 
able for wealthy men to make bequests of land, properly situated. 
for this public enjoyment, and commemorate the public spirit of 
such men by a statue or a beautiful marble vase, Avith an inscription, 
telling all succeeding generations to whom they are indebted for the 
beauty and enjoyment that constitute the chief attraction of the 
town. Let the ladies gather money from young and old by fairs, 
and " tea parties," to aid in planting and embellishing the grounds. 
Nay, I Avould have life-members, who on paying a certain sum, 
should be the owners in " fee simple " of certain fine trees, or groups 
of trees ; since there are some who will never give money but for 
some tangible and visible property. 

Ed. It is, perhaps, not so difficult to get the public park or gar- 
den, as to meet all the annual expenses required to keep it in the re- 
quisite condition. 

Trav. There is, to my mind, but one effectual and rational 
mo<le of doing this — by a voluntary taxation on the part of all the 
inhabitants. A few shillings each person, or a small per centage on 
the value of all the property in a town, would keep a park of a 
hundred or two acres in admirable order, and defray all the inciden- 
tal expenses. Did you ever make a calculation of the sum volun- 
tarily paid in towns like this, of nine thousand inhabitants, for pew 
rent in churches and places of Avorship ? 

Ed. No. 

Trav. Very well ; I have had the curiosity lately to do so, and 
find that in a town of nine thousand souls, and with ten " meeting- 
houses " of various sects, more than ten thousand dollars are volun- 
tarily paid every year for the privilege of sitting in these churches. 
Does it appear to you impossible that half that sum (a few shillings 
a year each) would be willingly paid every year for the privilege of 
a hundred acres of beautiful park or pleasure-grounds, where ever}- 
man, woman, and child in the community could have, for a few 
shillings, all the soft verdure, the umbrageous foliage, the lovely 
flowers, the place for exercise, recreation, repose, that Victoria has in 
her Park of Windsor ? 
10 



146 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

£d. Not at all, if our countrymen could be made to look upon 
the matter in the same light as yourself. But while no men contri- 
bute money so willingly and liberally as we Americans for the sup- 
port of religion, or indeed for the furtherance of any object of moral 
good, we are slow to understand the value and influence of beauty 
of this material kind, on our daily lives. 

Trav. But we must believe it, because the Beautiful is no less 
eternal than the True and the Good. And it is the province of the 
press — of writers who have the public ear — to help those to see 
(who are slow to perceive it), how much these outward influences 
have to do with bettering the condition of a people, as good citizens, 
patriots, men. Nay, more ; what an important influence these pub- 
lic resorts, of a rational and refined character, must exert in ele- 
vating the national character, and softening the many little jealousies 
of social life by a community of enjoyments. A people will have 
its pleasures, as certainly as its religion or its laws ; and whether 
these pleasures are poisonous and hurtful, or innocent and salutary, 
must greatly depend on the interest taken in them by the directing 
minds of the age. Get some country town of the first class to set 
the example by making a public park or garden of this kind. Let 
our people once see for themselves the influence for good which it 
would eftect, no less than the healthful enjoyment it will aftbrd, and 
I feel confident that the taste for public pleasure-grounds, in the 
United States, will spread as rapidly as that for cemeteries has done. 
If my own observation of the eftect of tlie^e places in Germany is 
worth any thing, you may take my word for it that they will be 
better preachers of temperance than temperance societies, better re- 
finers of national manners than dancing-schools, and better promot- 
ers of general good feeling than any lectures on the philosophy of 
happiness ever delivered in the lecture-room. In short, I am in 
earnest about the matter, and must therefore talk, write, preach, do 
^dl I can about it, and beg the assistance of all those who have pub- 
lic influence, till some good experiment of the kind is fairly tried in 
this country. 

Ed. I wish you all success in your good undertaking ; and will, 
at least, print our conversation for the benefit of the readers of the 
Horticulturist. 



VIII. 

THE NEW-YORK PARK. • 

August, 1851. 

THE leading topic of town gossip and newspaper paragraphs just 
now, in New- York, is the new park proposed by Mayor Kings- 
hind. Deluded New- York has, until lately, contented itself with the 
little door-yards of space — mere grass-plats of verdure, which form 
the squares of the city, in the mistaken idea that they are parks. 
The fourth city in the world (wath a growth that w'ill soon make it 
the second), the commercial metropolis of a continent spacious enough 
to border both oceans, has not hitherto been able to afford sufficient 
land to give its citizens (the majority of whom live there the Avhole 
year round) any breathing space for pure air, any recreation ground 
for healthful exercise, any pleasant roads for riding or dri\ang, or any 
enjoyment of that lovely and refreshing natural beauty from which 
they have, in leaving the country, reluctantly expatriated themselves 
for so many years — perhaps for ever. Some few thousands, more 
fortunate than the rest, are able to escape for a couple of months, 
into the countiy, to find repose for body and soul, in its leafy groves 
and pleasant pastures, or to inhale new life on the refreshing sea- 
shore. But in the mean time the city is always full. Its steady 
population of five hundred thousand souls is always there ; always 
on the increase. Every ship brings a live cargo from over-peopled 
Europe, to fill up its over-crowded lodging-houses ; every steamer 
brings hundreds of strangers to fill its thronged thoroughfares. 
Crowded hotels, crowded streets, hot summers, business pursued till 
it becomes a game of excitement, pleasure followed till its votaries 



148 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

are exhausted, where is the quiet reverse side of this picture of town 
life, intensified almost to distraction ? 

Mayor Kingsland spreads it out to the vision of the dwellers in 
this arid desert of business and dissipation — a green oasis fur the re- 
freshment of the city's soul and body. He tells the citizens of that 
feverish metropolis, as every intelligent man will tell them who knows 
the cities of the old world, that New- York, and American cities 
generally, are voluntarily and ignorantly living in a state of com- 
plete forgetfulness of nature, and her innocent recreations. That, 
because it is needful in civilized life for men to live in cities, — yes; 
and unfortunately- too, for children to be born and educated without 
a daily sight of the blessed horizon, — it is not, therefore, needful for 
them to be so miserly as to live utterly divorced from all pleasant 
and healthful intercourse with gardens, and green fields. He in- 
forms them that cool umbrageous groves have not forsworn them- 
selves within town limits, and that half a million of people have a 
right to ask for the "greatest happiness" of parks and pleasure- 
grounds, as well as for paving stones and gas-lights. 

Now that pul;)lic opinion has fairly settled that a park is neces- 
sary, the parsimonious declare that the plot of one hundred and 
sixty acres proposed by Mayor Kingsland is extravagantly large. 
Short-sighted economists ! If the future growth of the city were 
confined to the boundaries their nari'ow vision would fix, it would 
soon cease to be the commercial emporium of the countiy. If they 
were the purveyors of the young giant, he would soon present the 
sorry spectacle of a robust youth magnificently developed, but whose 
extremities had outgrown every garment that they had provided to 
cover his nakedness. 

These timid tax-payers, and men nervous in their private pockets 
of the municipal expenditures, should take a lesson from some of 
their number to whose admirable foresight we owe the unity of ma- 
terials displayed in the New-York City-Hall. Every one familiar 
with New-York, has wondered or smiled at the apparent pervei"sity 
of taste which gave us a building — in the most conspicuous part of 
the city, and devoted to the highest municipal uses, three sides of 
which are pure white marl)le, and the fourth of coarse, brown stone. 
But fcAv of those who see that incongruity, know that it was dictated 



THE NEW-YORK PARK. 149 

by the narrow-sighted frugality of the common council who were 
its building committee, and who determined that it would be useless 
to waste marble on the rear of the City -Hall, " since that side would 
only be seen hy persons living in the suburbs.'''' 

Thanking Mayor Kingsland most heartily for his proposed new 
park, the only objection we make to it is that it is too small. One 
hundred aud sixty acres of park for a city that will soon contain 
three-quarters of a million of people ! It is only a child's play- 
ground. Why London has over six thousand acres either within 
its own limits, or in the accessible suburbs, open to the enjoyment 
of its population — and six thousand acres composed too, either of 
the grandest and most lovely park scenery, like Kensington and 
Richmond, or of luxuriant gardens, filled with rare plants, hot-houses, 
and hardy shrubs and trees, like the National Garden at Kew. 
Paris has its Garden of the Tuileries, whose alleys are lined with 
orange-trees two hundred years old, whose parterres are gay with 
the brightest flowers, whose cool groves of horse-chestnuts, stretching 
out to the Elysian Fields, are in the very midst of the city. Yes, 
and on its outskirts are Versailles (three thousand acres of imperial 
gi-oves and gardens there also), and Fontainbleau, and St. Cloud, 
with all the rural, scenic, and palatial beauty that the opulence of 
the most profuse of French monarchs could create, all open to the 
2'>eople of Paris. Vienna has its great Prater., to make which, would 
swallow up most of the "unimproved" part of New-York city. 
Munich has a superb pleasure-ground of five hundred acres, which 
makes the Arcadia of her citizens. Even the smaller towns are pro- 
vided with public grounds to an extent that would beggar the imag- 
ination of our short-sighted economists, Avho would deny " a green- 
ery" to New-York; Frankfort, for example, is skirted by the most 
beautiful gardens, formed upon the platform which made the old 
ramparts of the city — gardens filled with the loveliest plants and 
shrubs, tastefully grouped along walks over two miles in extent. 

Looking at the present government of the city as about to pro- 
vide, in the People's Park, a breathing zone, and healthful place foi' 
exercise for a city of half a million of souls, we trust they will not 
be content with the limited number of acres already proposed. 
Five hundred acres is the smallest area that should be reserved for 



150 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

th(i future wants of such a city, wow, while it may be obtained. 
Five hundred acres may be selected between Thirty-ninth-street and 
the Harlem River, including a varied surface of land, a good deal of 
which is yet waste area, so that the whole may be purchased at 
something like a million of dollars. In that area there would be 
space enough to have broad reaches of park and pleasure-grounds, 
with a real feeling of the breadth and beauty of green fields, the 
perfume and freshness of nature. In its midst would be located the 
great distributing reservoirs of the Croton aqueduct, formed into 
lovely lakes of limpid water, covering many acres, and heightening 
the charm of the sylvan accessories by the finest natural contrast. 
In such a park, the citizens who would take exciirsions in carriages 
or on horseback, could have the substantial delights of country roads 
and country scenery, and forget, for a time the rattle of the pave- 
ments and the glare of brick walls. Pedestrians would find quiet 
and secluded walks when they wished to be solitary, and broad alleys 
filled with thousands of happ)" faces, Avhen they would be gay. The 
thoughtful denizen of the town would go out there in the morning, 
to hold converse with the whispering trees, and the weary tradesmen 
in the evening, to enjoy an hour of happiness by mingling in the 
open space with " all the world." 

The many beauties and utilities that would gradually gi-ow out 
of a great park like this, in a great city like New- York, suggest 
themselves immediately and forcibly. Where would be found so 
fitting a position for noble works of art, the statues, monuments, and 
buildings commemorative at once of the gi-eat men of the nation, 
of the history of the age and country, and the genius of our high- 
est artists ? In the broad area of such a verdant zone would grad- 
ually grow up, as the wealth of the city increases, winter gardens 
of glass, like the great Crystal Palace, where the whole people 
could luxuriate in groves of the palms and spice trees of the tropics, 
at the same moment that sleighing parties glided swiftly and noise- 
lessly over the snow-covered siu-face of the country-like avenues 
of the wintry park without. Zoological Gardens, like those of Lon- 
don and Paris, would gi-adually be formed by private subscription 
or public funds, M'here thousands of old and young would find daily 
pleasure in studying natural history, illustrated by all the wildest 



THE NEW-YORK PARK. 151 

and strangest animals of the globe, almost as much at home in their 
paddocks and jungles, as if in their native forests ; and Horticultu- 
ral and Industrial Societies would hold their annual shows thei-e, 
and great expositions of the arts would take place in spacious build- 
ings within the park, far more fittingly than in the noise and din of 
the crowded streets of the city. 

We have said nothing of the social influence of such a great 
park in New- York. But this is really the most interesting phase of 
the whole matter. It is a fact not a little remarkable, that, ultra 
democratic as are the political tendencies of America, its most in- 
telligent social tendencies are almost wholly in a contrary direction. 
And among the topics discussed by the advocates and opponents of 
the new park, none seem so poorly understood as the social aspect 
of the thing. It is, indeed, both curious and amusing to see the 
stand taken on the one hand by the million, that the park is made 
for the " upper ten," who ride in fine carriages, and, on the othei- 
hand, by the wealthy and refined, that a park in this country will 
be "usurped by rowdies and low people." Shame upon our repub- 
lican compatriots who so little understand the elevating influences 
of the beautiful in nature and in art, when enjoyed in common by 
thousands and hundreds of thousands of all classes without distinc- 
tion ! They can never have seen, how all over France and Germa- 
ny, the whole population of the cities pass their aftei-noons and 
evenings together, in the beautiftil public parks and gardens. How 
they enjoy together the same music, breathe the same atmosphere 
of art, enjoy the same scenery, and gi-ow into social freedom by the 
very influences of easy intercourse, space and beauty that surround 
them. In Germany, especially, they have never seen how the high- 
est and the lowest partake alike of the common enjoyment — the 
prince seated beneath the trees on a rush-bottomed chair, before a 
little wooden table, supping his coft'ee or his ice, with the same free- 
dom from state and pretension as the simplest subject. Drawing- 
room conventionalities are too narrow for a mile or two of spacious 
garden landscape, and one can be happy with ten thousand in the 
social fi-eedom of a community of genial influences, without the 
unutterable pang of not having been introduced to the company 
present. 



162 " LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

These social doubters who thus inti-ench themselves in the sole 
citadel of exdusiveness in republican America, mistake our people 
and their destiny. If we would but have listened to them, our mag- 
nificent river and lake steamers, those real palaces of the million, 
would have had no velvet couches, no splendid mirrors, no luxurious 
carpets. Such costly and rare appliances of civilization, they would 
have told us, could only be rightly used by the privileged families 
of wealth, and would be trampled upon and utterly ruined by the 
democracy of the country, who travel one hundred miles for half a 
dollar. And yet these, our floating palaces and our monster hotels, 
with their pui-ple and fine linen, are they not respected by the ma- 
jority who use them, as truly as other palaces by their rightful sov- 
ereigns ? Alas, for the faithlessness of the few, who possess, regarding 
the capacity for culture of the many, who are wanting. Even upon 
the lower platform of liberty and education that the masses stand 
in Europe, we see the elevating influences of a wide popular enjoy- 
ment of galleries of art, j)ublic libraries, parks and gardens, which 
have raised the people in social civilization and social culture to a 
far higher level than we have yet attained in republican America. 
And yet this broad ground of popular refinement must be taken in 
republican America, for it belongs of right more truly here, than 
elsewhere. It is republican in its very idea and tendency. It takes 
up popular education where the common school and ballot-box leave 
it, and raises up the working-man to the same level of enjoyment 
with the man of leisure and accomplishment. The higher social 
and artistic elements of every man's nature lie dormant within him, 
and every laborer is a possible gentleman, not by the possession of 
money or fine clothes — but through the refining influence of intel- 
lectual and moral culture. Open wide, therefore, the doors of your 
libraries and picture galleries, all ye true republicans ! Build halls 
where knowledge shall be freely dift'used among men, and not shut up 
within the narrow walls of narrower institutions. Plant spacious 
parks in your cities, and unloose their gates as wide as the gates of 
morning to the whole people. As there are no dark places at noon 
day, so education and culture — the true sunshine of the soul — will 
banish the plague spots of democracy ; and the dread of the igno- 
rant exclusive who has no fafth in the refinement of a republic, will 



THE NKW-YORK PARK. 153 

stand abashed in the next century, before a whole people whose sys- 
tem of voluntary education embraces (combined with perfect indi- 
vidual freedom), not only common schools of rudimentary know- 
ledge, but common enjoyments for all classes in the higher realms 
of art, letters, science, social recreations, and enjoyments. Were 
our legislators but wise enough to understand, to-day, the destinies 
of the New World, the gentility of Sir Philip Sidney, made univer- 
sal, would be not half so much a miracle fifty years hence in Amer- 
ica, as the idea of a whole nation of laboring-men reading and 
writing, was, in his day, in England. 



IX. 

PUBLIC CEMETERIES AND PUBLIC GARDENS. 

July, 1849. 

ONE of the most remarkable illustrations of the popular taste, iu 
this country, is to be found in the rise and progress of our rural 
cemeteries. 

Twenty years ago, nothing better than a common grave-yard, 
filled with high grass, and a chance sprinkling of weeds and thistles, 
was to be found in the Union. If there were one or two exceptions, 
like the burial ground at New Haven, where a few willow trees 
broke the monotony of the scene, they existed only to prove the rule 
more completely. 

Eighteen years ago. Mount Auburn, about six miles from Boston, 
was made a rural cemetery. It was then a charming natural site, 
finely varied in surface, containing about 80 acres of land, and ad- 
mirably clothed by groups and masses of native forest trees. It was 
tastefully laid out, monuments were built, and tlie whole highly em- 
bellished. No sooner was attention generally roused to the charms 
of this first American cemetery, than the idea took the public mind 
by storm. Travellers made pilgrimages to the Athens of New Eng- 
land, solely to see the realization of their long chei-ished dream of a 
resting-place for the dead, at once sacred from profanation, dear t<« 
the memory, and caj^tivating to the imagination. 

Not twenty years have passed since that time ; and, at the pres- 
ent moment, there is scarcely a city of note in the whole country 
that has not its rural cemetery. The three leading cities of the 
north, New- York, Philadelphia, Boston, have, each of them, besides 



PUBLIC CEMETERIES AND PUBLIC GARDENS. 155 

their great cemeteries, — Greenwood, Laurel Hill, Mount Auburn, — 
many others of less note ; but any of which would have astonished 
and delighted their inhabitants twenty years ago. Philadelphia has, 
we learn, nearly twenty rural cemeteries at the present moment, — 
several of them belonging to distinct societies, sects or associations, 
while others are open to al].* 

The great attraction of these cemeteries, to the mass of the com- 
munity, is not in the fact that they are burial-places, or solemn places 
of meditation for the friends of the deceased, or striking exhibitions 
of monumental sculpture, though all these have their influence. All 
these might be realized in a burial-ground, planted with straight 
lines of willows, and sombre avenues of evergreens. The ti'ue seci'et 
of the attraction lies in the natural beauty of the sites, and in the 
tasteful and. hai-monious embellishment of these sites by art. Nearly 
all these cemeteries were rich portions of forest land, broken by hill 
and dale, and vai-ied by copses and glades, like Mount Auburn and 
Greenwood, or old country-seats, richly wooded with fine planted 
trees, like Laurel Hill. Hence, to an inhabitant of the town, a visit 
to one of these spots has the united charm of nature and art, — the 
double wealth of rural and moral associations. It awakens at the 
same moment, the feeling of human sympathy and the love of nat- 
ural beauty, implanted in every heart; His must be a dull or a 
trifling soul that neither swells with emotion, or rises with admira- 
tion, at the varied beauty of these lovely and hallowed spots. 

Indeed, in the absence of great public gardens, such as we must 
.surely one day have in America, our rural cemeteiies are doing a 
great deal to enlarge and educate the popular taste in rural embel- 
lishment. They are for the most part laid out with admirable taste ; 
they contain the greatest variety of trees and shrubs to be found in 
the country, and several of them are kept in a manner seldom equal- 
led in private places, f 

* We made a rough calculation from some data obtained at Philadelphia 
lately, by which we tind that, including the cost of the lots, more than a 
million and a hiilf of dollai's have been expended in the purchase and decora- 
tion of cemeteries in that neighborhood alone. 

f Laurel Hill is especially rich in rare trees. We saw. last month, almost 
every procurable species f)f hardy tree aitd shi-ub growing there, — among 



156 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

The character of each of the three great cemeteries is essentially 
distinct. Greenwood^ the largest, and unquestionably the finest, is 
grand, dignified, and park-like. It is laid out in a broad and simple 
style, commands noble ocean views, and is admirably kept. Mount 
Auburn is richly picturesque, in its varied hill and dale, and owes 
its charm mainly to this variety and intricacy of sylvan features. 
Laurel Hill is a charming pleasure-ground^ filled with beautiful and 
rare shrubs and flowers ; at this season, a wilderness of roses, as well 
as fine trees and monuments.* 

To enable the reader to form a correct idea of the influence 

others, the Cedar of Lebanon, the Deodar Cedar, the Paulownia, the Araii- 
caria, etc. Rhododendrons and Azaleas wei-e in full bloom ; and the purple 
Beeches, the weeping Ash, rare Junipers, Pines, and deciduous trees were 
abundant in many parts of the grounds. Twenty acres of new ground have 
just been added to this cemetery. It is a better arboretum than can easily 
be found elsewhere iu the country. 

* Few things are perfect ; and beautiful and interesting as our rural 
cemeteries now are, — more beautiful and interesting than any thing of the 
same kind abroad, we cannot pass by one feature in all, marked by the most 
violent bad taste ; we mean the hideous ironmongery, which they all more 
or less display. Why, if the separate lots must be inclosed with iron rail- 
ings, the railings should not be of simple and unobtrusive patterns, we are 
wholly unable to conceive. As we now see them, by far the greater part 
are so ugly as to be positive blots on the beauty of the scene. Fantastic 
conceits and gimcracks in iron might be pardonable as adornments of the 
balustrade of a circus or a temple of Comus ; but how reasonable beings can 
tolerate them as inclosures to the quiet grave of a femily, and in such scenes 
of sylvan beauty, is mountain high above our comprehension. 

But this is not all ; as if to show hoAV far human infirmity can go, we 
noticed lately several lots in one of these cemeteries, not only inclosed with 
a most barbarous piece of irony, but the gate of which was positively orna- 
mented with the coat of arms of the owner, accompanied by a brass door- 
plate, on which was engraved the owner's name, and city residence ! All 
the world has amused itself with the epitaph on a tombstone in Pere la 
Chaise, erected by a wife to her husband's memory ; in which, after recapit- 
ulating the many virtues of the departed, the bereaved one concludes with 
— " his disconsolate widow still continues the business. No. — , Rose-street, 
Paris." We really have some doubts if the disconsolate widow's epitaph 
advertisement is not in better taste than the cemetery brass doorplate im- 
moi-tality of our friends at home. 



PUBLIC CEMETERIES AND PUBLIC GARDENS. 157 

which these beautiful cemeteries constantly exercise on the public 
mind, it is only necessary to refer to the rapidity with which they 
have increased in fifteen years, as we have just remai-ked. To en- 
able them to judge how largely they arouse public curiosity, we may 
mention that at Laurel Hill, four miles from Philadelphia, an ac- 
count was kept of the number of visitors during last season ; and the 
sum total, as we were told by one of the directors, was nearly 30,000 
persons, who entered the gates between April and December, 1848. 
Judging only from occasional observations, we should imagine that 
double that number visit Greenwood, and certainly an equal num- 
ber, Mount Auburn, in a season. 

We have already remarked, that, in the absence of public gar- 
dens, rural cemeteries, in a certain degree, supplied their place. But 
does not this general interest, manifested in these cemeteries, prove 
that public gardens, established in a liberal and suitable manner, 
near our large cities, would be equally successful ? If 30,000 per- 
sons visit a cemetery in a single season, would not a large public 
garden be equally a matter of curious investigation ? Would not 
such gardens educate the public taste more rapidly than any thing- 
else ? And would not the progress of horticulture, as a science and 
an art, be equally benefited by such establishments ? The passion 
for rural pleasures is destined to be the predominant passion of all 
the more thoughtful and educated portion of our peoj)le ; and any 
means of gratifying their love for ornamental or useful gardening, 
will be eagerly seized by hundreds of thousands of our countrymen. 

Let us suppose a joint-stock company, formed in any of our 
cities, for the purpose of providing its inhabitants with the luxury 
of a public garden. A site should be selected with the same judg- 
ment which has already been shown by the cemetery companies. 
It should have a varied surface, a good position, sufficient natural 
wood, with open space and good soil enough for the arrangement 
of all those portions which require to be newly planted. 

Such a garden might, in the space of fifty to one hundred acres, 
afford an example of the principal modes of laying out gi-ounds, — 
thus teaching practical landscape-gardening. It might contain a 
collection of all the hardy trees and shrubs that grow in this cli- 
mate, each distinctly labelled, — so that the most ignorant visitor 



158 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

could not fail to learn something of trees. It might have a botani- 
cal arrangement of plants, and a lecmre-room where, at the proper 
season, lectures on botany could be delivered, and the classes which 
should resort there could study with the growing plants under their 
eyes. It might be laid out so as, in its wooded position, to afford a 
magnificent drive for those who chose so to enjoy it ; and it might be 
furnished with suitable ices and other refreshments, so that, like the 
(xerman gardens, it would be the great promenade of all strangers 
and citizens, visitors, or inhabitants of the city of whose suburbs it 
would foi-m a part. But how shall such an establishment be sup- 
ported ? Cemeteries are sustained by the prices paid for lots, which, 
though costing not a large sum each, make an enormous sum in 
the aggregate. 

We answer, by a small admission fee. Only those who are 
shareholders would (like those owning lots in a cemetery) have 
entrance for their horses and carriages. This privilege alone Avould 
tempt hundreds to subscribe, thus adding to the capital, while the 
daily resort of citizens and strangers would give the necessary in- 
come ; for no traveller would leave a city, possessing such a public 
garden as we have described, without seeing that, its most interest- 
ing feature. The finest band of music, the most rigid police, the 
certainty of an agreeable promenade and excellent refreshments, 
would, we think, as surely tempt a large part of the better class of 
the inhabitants of our cities to such a resort here as in Germany. 
If the road to Mount Auburn is now lined with coaches, continu- 
ally carrying the inhabitants of Boston by thousands and tens of 
thousands, is it not likely that such a garden, full of the most varied 
instruction, amusement, and recreation, would be ten times more 
visited ? Fetes might be held there, horticultural societies would 
make annual exhibitions there, and it would be the general holiday- 
ground of all who love to escape from the brick walls, paved streets, 
and stifling atmosphere of towns. 

Would such a project pay ? This is the home question of all 
the calculating part of the community, who must open their purse- 
strings to make it a substantial reality. 

We can only judge by analogy. The mere yearly rent of Bar- 
num's Museum in Broadway is, we believe, about $10,000 (a sum 



PUBLIC CEMETERIES AND PUBLIC GARDENS. 159 

more than sufficient to meet all the annual expenses of such a gar- 
Jen) ; and it is not only paid, but very large profits have been made 
there. Now, if hundreds of thousands of the inhabitants of cities, 
like New- York, will pay to see stuffed boa-constrictors and un-hu- 
man Belgian giants, or incur the expense and trouble of going five or 
six miles to visit Greenwood, we think it may safely be estimated 
that a much larger number would resort to a public garden, at onc<i 
the finest park, the most charming drive, the most inviting pleasure- 
ground, and the most agreeable promenade within their reach. That 
such a project, carefully 2>lanned, and liberally and judiciously car- 
i-ied out, woidd not only par/, in money, but largely civilize and 
refine the national character, foster the love of rural beauty, and in- 
crease the knowledge of and taste for rare and beautiful trees and 
plants, we cannot entertain a reasonable doubt. 

It is only necessary for one of the three cities which first opened 
<;emeteries, to set the example, and the thing once fairly seen, it 
becomes universal. The true policy of republics, is to foster the 
taste for great public libraries, sculpture and picture galleries, parks, 
and gardens, which all may enjoy, since our institutions wisely 
forbid the growth of i>rivate fortunes sufficient to achieve these de- 
sirable results in any other way. 



X. 



HOW TO CHOOSE A SITE FOR A COUNTRY-SEAT. 

December, 1847. 

HOW to choose the site for a country house, is a subject now 
occupying the thoughts of many of our countrymen, and 
therefore is not undeserving a few words from us at the present 
moment. 

The greater part of those who build country-seats in the United 
States, are citizens who retire from the active pursuits of town to en- 
joy, in the most rational way possible, the fortunes accumulated 
there — that is to say, in the creation of beautiful and agreeable rural 
homes. 

Whatever may be the natural taste of this class, their avoca- 
tions have not permitted them to become familiar with the difficul- 
ties to be encountered in making a neiv place, or the most successful 
way of accomplishing all that they propose to themselves. Hence, 
we not imfrequently see a very complete house surrounded, for years, 
by very unfinished and meagre grounds. Weary with the labor and 
expense of levelling earth, opening roads and walks, and clothing a 
naked place with new plantations, all of which he finds far less easily 
accomplished than building brick walls in the city, the once san- 
guine improver often abates his energy, and loses his interest in the 
embellishment of his grounds, before his plans are half perfected. 

All this arises from a general disposition to underi-ate the diffi- 
culty and cost of making plantations, and laying the groundwork 
of a complete country residence. Landscape gardening, where all 
its elements require to be newly arranged, Avhere the scenery of a 



HOW TO CHOOSE A SITE FOR A COUNTRY-SEAT. 161 

place requires to be almost wholly created, is by no means either a 
cheap or rapid process. Labor and patience must be added to 
taste, time and money, before a bare site can be turned into smooth 
lawns and complete pleasure-grounds. 

The best advice which the most experienced landscape gardener 
can give an American about to select ground for a country residence, 
is, therefore, to choose a site where there is natural tvood^ and where / 
nature offers the greatest number of good features ready for a basis' 
upon which to commence improvements. 

We have, already, so often descanted on the superiority of trees 
and lawns to all other features of ornamental places imited, that our 
readers are not, we trust, slow to side with us in a thorough appre- 
ciation of their charms. 

Hence, when a site for a country place is to be selected (after j 
health and good neighborhood), the first points are, if possible, to 
secure a position where there is some existing wood, and where the 
ground is so disposed as to offer a natural surface for a fine lawn. ( 
These two points secured, half the battle is fought, for the framework 
or background of foliage being ready grown, immediate shelter, 
shade, and effect is given as soon as the house is erected ; and a 
smface well shaped for a lawn (or one which requires but trifling 
alterations) once obtained, all the labor and cost of grading is 
avoided, and a single season's thorough preparation gives you velvet 
to walk about upon. 

Some of our readers, no doubt, will say this is excellent advice, 
but unfortunately not easily followed. So many are forced to build 
on a bare site, " and begin at the beginning." 

This is no doubt occasionally true, but in nine cases out of ten, 
in this country, our own observation has convinced us that the 
choice of a poor location is the result of local prejudice, or want of 
knowledge of the subject, rather than of necessity. 

How frequently do we see men paying large prices for indifferent 
sites, when at a distance of half a mile there are one or more posi- ^ 
tions on which nature has lavished treasures of wood and water, and, i 
spread out undulating surfaces, which seem absolutely to court thej/ 
finishing touches of the rural artist. Place a dwellino- in such a 
site, and it appropriates all nature's handiwork to itself in a moment. 
11 



162 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

The masses of trees are easily broken into groups that have imme- 
diately the effect of old plantations, and all the minor details of 
shrubbery, walks, and flower and fruit gardens, fall gracefully and 
becomingly into their proper positions. Sheltered and screened, 
and brought into harmony with the landscape, these finishing touches 
serve in turn to enhance the beauty and value of the original ti'ees 
themselves. 

We by no means wish to deter those who liave an abundance 
')f means, taste, enthusiasm and patience, from undertaking the 
creation of entire new scenery in their country residences. There 
are few sources of satisfaction more genuine and lasting than that 
of walking through extensive groves and plantations, all reared by 
one's own hands — to look on a landscape which one has transformed 
into leafy hills and wood-embowered slopes. We scarcely remem- 
ber more real delight evinced by any youthful devotee of our favor- 
ite art, in all the fervor of his first enthusiasm, than has been ex- 
pressed to us by one of our venerable ex-Presidents, now in a ripe 
old age, when showing us, at various times, fine old forest trees, 
oaks, hickories, etc., which have been watched by him in their en- 
tire cycle of development, from the naked seeds deposited in the 
soil by his own hands, to their now furrowed trunks and umbi-a- 
geous heads ! 

But it must be confessed, that it is throwing away a large part of 
one's life — and that too, more especially, when the cup of country 
pleasures is not brought to the lips till one's meridian is well nigh 
past — to take the whole business of making a landscape fi'om the 
invisible carbon and oxygen waiting in soil and atmosphere, to be 
turned by the slow alchemy of ten or twenty summers' growth into 
groves of weeping elms, and groups of overshadowing oaks i 

Those, therefore, who wish to start with the advantage of a good 
patrimony from nature, will prefer to examine what mother Earth 
has to ofter them in her choicest nooks, before they determine on 
taking hold of some meagre scene, where the woodman's axe and 
the ploughman's furrow have long ago obliterated all the original 
beauty of the landscape. If a place cannot be found well wooded, 
perhaps a fringe of wood or a background of forest foliage can be 
taken advantage of. These will give shelter, and serve as a ground- 



HOW TO CHOOSE A SITE FOR A COUNTRY-SEAT. lt)3 

work to help on the effects of the ornamental planter. We have 
seen a cottage or a villa site dignified, and rendered attractive for 
ever, by the possession of even three or four fine trees of the original 
growth, judiciously preserved, and taken as the nucleus of a whole 
series of belts and minor plantations. 

There is another most striking advantage in the possession of 
considerable wooded surface, properly located, in a country resi- 
dence. This is the seclusion and privacy of the walks and drives, " 
which such bits of woodland aftbrd. Walks, in open lawn, or even' 
amid belts of shrubbery, are never felt to have that seclusion and.^ 
comparative solitude which belong to the wilder asjiect of wood-'\ 
land scenes. And no contrast is more agreeable than that from i 
the open sunny brightness of the lawn and pleasure-gi'ounds, to the ' 
retirement and quiet of a woodland walk. 

Again, it is no small matter of consideration to many persons 
settling in the country, the production of picturesque eftect, the 
working out of a realm of beauty of their own, without any serious 
inroads into their incomes. One's private walks and parterres, un- 
luckily, cannot be had at the cost of one's daily bread and butter — 
though the Beautiful overtops the useful, as stars outshine farthing 
(iandles. But the difference of cost between keeping up a long 
series of walks, in a place mainly composed of flower-garden, 
shrubbery, and pleasure-grounds, compared with another, where 
there are merely lawas and sylvan scenery, is like that between 
maintaining a chancery suit, or keeping on pleasant terms with 
your best friend or favorite country neighbor. Open walks must 
be scrupulously neat, and broad sunshine and rich soil make weeds 
gi-ow faster than a new city in the best " western diggins," and 
your gardener has no sooner put the series of walks in perfect order, 
than he looks over his shoulder, and beholds the enemy is there, to 
be conquered over again. On the other hand, woodland walks are 
swept and repaired in the spring, and like some of those gifted indi- 1 
viduals, "born neat," they require no more attention than the rain-| 
bow, to remain fresh and bright till the autumn leaves begin to drop I 
again. 

Our citizen reader, therefore, who wishes to enjoy his country- 
seat as an elegant sylvan retreat, with the greatest amount of beauty 



164 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

and enjoyment, and the smallest care and expenditure, will choose 
a place naturally well wooded, or where open glades and bits of 
lawn alternate with masses or groups, and, it may be, with exten- 
sive tracts of well-grown wood. A house once erected on such a 
site, the whole can very easily be turned into a charming labyrinth 
of beautiful and secluded drives and walks. And as our improver 
cultivates his eye and his taste, nature will certainly give him fresh 
hints ; she will tell him how by opening a glade here, and piercing 
a thicket there, by making underwood occasionally give place to 
soft turf, so as to show fine trunks to the greatest advantage, and 
thereby bringing into more complete contrast some wilder and 
more picturesque dell, all the natural charms of a place may be 
heightened into a beauty far more impressive and significant than 
they originally possessed. 

Why man's perception of the Beautiful seems clouded over 
in most uncultivated natures, and is only brought out by a certain 
process of refining and mental culture, as the lapidary brings 
out, by polishing, all the rich play of colors in a stone that one 
passes by as a common pebble, we leave to the metaphysicians to 
explain. Certain it is, that we see, occasionally, lamentable proofs 
of the fact in the treatment of nature's best features, by her untu- 
tored children. More than one instance do we call to mind, of set- 
tlers, in districts of country where there are masses and great woods 
of trees, that the druids would have worshipped for their grandeur, 
sweeping them all down mercilessly with their axes, and then plant- 
ing with the supremest satisfaction, a straight line of paltry saplings 
before their doors ! It is like exchanging a neighborhood of proud 
and benevolent yeomanry, honest and free as the soil they spring 
from, for a file of sentinels or gens-cfarmes^ that watch over one's 
outgoings and incomings, like a chief of police ! 

Most happily for our country, and its beautiful rural scenery, this 
spirit of destruction, under the rapid development of taste that is 
taking place among us, is very fast disappearing. " Woodman, 
spare that tree," is the choral sentiment that should be instilled and 
taught at the agricultural schools, and re-echoed by all the agricul- 
tural and horticultural societies in the land. If we have neither old 
castles nor old associations, we have at least, here and there, old 



HOW TO CHOOSE A SITE FOR A COUNTRY-SEAT. 165 

trees that can tcacli us lessons of antiquity, not less instructive and 
poetical than the ruins of a past age. 

Our first hint, therefore, to persons about choosing a site for a 
country place, is, in all possible cases, to look for a situation where 
there is some natural wood. With this for the warp — strong, rich,\' 
and permanent — you may embroider upon it all the gold threads ' 
of fruit and floral embellishment with an effect equally rapid and 
successful. Every thing done upon such a groundwork will tell at 
once ; and since there is no end to the delightful task of perfecting 
a country place, so long as there are thirty thousand species of 
plants known, and at least thirty millions of varied combinations of 
landscape scenery possible, we think there is little fear that the 
possessor of a country place will not find tiam enough to employ 
his time, mind, and purse, if he really loves the subject, even though 
he find himself in possession of a fee-simple of a pretty number of 
acres of fine wood. 

But we have already exhausted our present limits, and must 
leave the discussion of other points to be observed in choosing a 
country place until a future number. 



XL 



HOW TO ARRANGE COUNTRY PLACES. 

March, 1850. 

HOW to lay out a country place? That is a question about 
wliicli we and our readers miglit have many a long conversa- 
tion, if we could be brought on familiar terms, colloquially speak- 
ing, with all parts of the Union where rural improvements are going 
on. As it is, we shall touch on a few leading points this month, 
which may be considered of universal application. 

These cardinal points within the bounds of a country residence, 
are (taking health and pleasant locality for granted), convenience, 
comfort — or social enjoyment — and beauty ; and we shall touch on 
them in a very rambling manner. 

Innumerable are the mistakes of those novices in forming coun- 
try places, who reverse the order of these three conditions, — and 
placing beauty first (as, intellectually considered, it deserves to be), 
leave the useful, convenient, and comfortable, pretty much to them- 
selves ; or, at least, consider them entitled only to a second place in 
their consideration. In the country places which they create, the 
casual visitor may be struck with many beautiful efiects ; but when 
a trifling observation has shown him that this beauty is not the re- 
sult of a harmony between the real and the ideal, — or, in other 
words, between the surface of things intended to be seen and the 
things themselves, as they minister to our daily wants, — then all the 
pleasure vanishes, and the opposite feeling takes its place. 

To begin at the very root of things, the most defective matter in 
laying out our country places (as we know from experience), is the 



HOW TO ARRANGE COUNTRY PLACES. 167 

want of forethought and plan, regarding the location of what is ]v 
called the kitchen offices. By this, we refer, of course, to that wing 
or portion of a country house containing the kitchen, with its store- 
room, pantry, scullery, laundry, wood-house, and whatever else, more 
or less, may be included under this head. 

Our correspondent, Jefireys, has, in his usual bold manner, 
pointed out how defective, in all cases (where the thing is not im- 
possible), is a country house with a kitchen below stairs ; and we 
have but lamely apologized for the practice in some houses by the 
greater economy of such an arrangement. But, in truth, we quite 
agree with him, that no country house is complete unless the kitchen 
offices are on the same level as the principal floor containing the 
living apartments. 

At first thought, our inexperienced readers may not see precisely 
what this has to do with laying out the grounds of a country place. 
But, indeed, it is the very starting point and fundamental substratum 
on which the whole thing rests. There can be no complete country 
place, however large or small, in which the greatest possible amount 
of privacy and seclusion is not attained within its grounds, espe- 
cially within that part intended for the enjojinent of the family. Now 
it is very clear, that there can be no seclusion where there is no 
separation of uses, no shelter, no portions set apart for especial pur- 
poses, both of utility and enjoyment. First of all, then, in planning 
a country place, the house should be so located that there shall bu j ( 
at least two sides ; an entrance side, which belongs to the living, or / 
best apartments of the house ; and a kitchen side (or " blind side^^), 
complete in itself, and more or less shut out from all observation 
from the remaining portions of the place. 

This is as indispensable for the comfort of the inmates of the 
kitchen as those of the parlor. By shutting otF completely one side 
of the house by belts or plantations of trees and shrubbery from the 
rest, you are enabled to make that part more extensive and complete 
in itself. The kitchen yard, the clothes-drying ground, the dairy, 
and all the structures which are so practically imj^ortant in a country 
house, have abundant room and space, and the domestics can per- 
form their appointed labors wdth ease and freedom, without disturb- 
ing the different aspect of any other portion of the grounds. There 



108 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

;ire few new sites where there is nut naturally a " blind side" indi- 
cated ; a side where there is a fringe of wood, or some natural dis- 
position of surface, which points it out as the spot where the kitchen 
offices should be placed, in order to have the utmost shelter and 
privacy, — at the same time leaving the finer glades, o})enings, and 
views, for the more refined, social and beautiful portions of the resi- 
dence. Wherever these indications are wanting, they must be 
created, by artificial planting of belts, and groups of trees and 
shrubs, — not in stiff and formal lines like fences, but in an irregular 
and naturally varied manner, so as to appear as if formed of a natu- 
I'al copse, or, rather, so as not to attract sjjecial attention at all. 

We are induced to insist upon this point the more strenuously, 
because, along with the taste for the architecture of Pericles (may 
we indulge the hope that he is not permitted to behold the Oreek 
architecture of the new world !) which came into fashion in this 
country fifteen or twenty years ago, came also the fashion of sweep- 
ing away every thing that was not temple-like about the house. Far 
from recognizing that man lives a domestic life, — that he cooks, 
washes, bakes and churns in his country house, and, therefore, that 
kitchen oftices (tastefully concealed if you please, but still ample) 
are a necessary, and therefore truthful part of his dwelling, — they 
went upon the principle that if man had fallen, and was no longer 
one of the gods, he might still live in a temple dedicated to the im- 
mortals. A clear space on all sides — pediments at each end, and 
perhaps a colonnade all round ; this is the undomestic, uncomfortable 
ideal of half the better country houses in America. 

Having fixed upon and arranged the blind side of the house — 
which, of course, will naturally be placed so as to connect itself 
directly with the stable and other out-buildings, — the next point of 
attack is the kitchen garden. This is not so easily disposed of as 
many imagine. All persons of good taste agree that however neces- 
sary, satisfactory, and pleasant a thing a good kitchen garden is, it 
is not, sesthetically, considered a beautiful thing ; and it never accords 
well with the ornamental portions of a country place, where the latter 
is large enough to have a lawn, pleasure-grounds, or other portions 
that give it an ornamental character. The fruit trees (and we in- 
clude now, for the sake of conciseness, kitchen and fruit garden), 



HOW TO ARRANGE COUNTRY PLACES. 169 

the vegetables, and all that makes the utility of the kitchen garden, 
never harmonize with the more gi-acefiil forms of ornamental scene- 
ry. Hence, the kitchen garden, in a complete country place, should 
always form a scene by itself, and should, also, bo shut out from 
the lawn or ornamental grounds by plantations of trees and shrubs. 
A good locality, as regards soil, is an important point to be consi- 
dered in determining its site ; and it will usually adjoin the space 
given to the kitchen offices, or that near the stable or barns, or, 2:>erhaps 
lie between both, so that it also is kept on the blind side of the house. 

After having disposed of the useful and indispensable portions 
of the place, by placing them in the spots at once best fitted for 
them, and least interfering with the convenience and beauty of the 
remaining portions, let us now turn to what may properly be called 
the ornamental portion of the place. 

This may be confined to a mere bit of lawn, extending a few 
feet in front of the parlor windows, or it may cover a number of 
acres, according to the extent of the place, and the taste and means 
of the owner. 

Be that as it may, the groundwork of this part should, in our 
judgment, always be lawn. There is in the country no object which 
at all seasons and times gives the constant satisfaction of the green 
turf of a nicely kept lawn. If your place is large, so much larger 
and broader is the good efiect of the lawn, as it stretches away, over 
gentle undulations, alternately smiling and looking serious, in the 
play of sunshine and shade that I'ests upon it. If it is small — a 
mere bit of green turf before your door — then it forms the best and 
most becoming setting to the small beds and masses of ever-bloom- 
ing roses, verbenas, and gay annuals, with which you embroider it, 
like a carpet. 

Lawn there must be, to give any refi-eshment to the spirit of 
man in our country places ; for nothing is so intolerable to the eye 
as great flower-gardens of parched earth, lying half baked in the 
meridian sun of an American summer. And though no nation 
under the sun may have such lawns as the British, because Britain 
lies in the lap of the sea, with a climate always more or less humid, 
yet green and pleasant lawns most persons may have in the Northern 
States, who will make the soil dcpp and keep the grass well mown. 



170 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

To mow a large surface of lawn — that is to say, many acres — 
is a thing attempted in but few places in America, fi-om the high 
price of labor. But a happy expedient comes in to our aid, to save 
labor and trouble, and produce all the good efiect of a well-mown 
lawn. We mean sheep and wire fences. Our neighbor and cor- 
respondent, Mr. Sargent, of Wodenethe, on the Hudson, who passed 
a couple of years abroad, curiously gleaning all clever foreign no- 
tions that were really worth natiu'alizing at home, has already told 
our readers how wire fences may be constructed round lawns or 
portions of the pleasure-grounds, so that only a strip round the house 
need be mown, while the extent of the lawn is kept short by sheep. 
This fence, which costs less than any tolerable looking fence of 
other materials, is abundantly strong to turn both sheep and cattle, 
and is invisible at the distance of 40 or 50 rods. Mr. Sargent is not 
a theorist, but has actually inclosed his own lawn of several acres 
in this way ; and those who have examined the plan are struck with 
the usefulness and economy of the thing, in all ornamental country 
places of considerable extent. 

We have said nothing, as yet, of the most important feature of 
all country places — trees. A country place without trees, is like a 
caliph without his beard ; in other words, it is not a country place. 
We shall assume, therefore, that all proprietors who do not already 
possess this indispensable feature, will set about planting with more 
ardor than Walter Scott ever did. It is the one thing needful for 
them ; and deep trenching, plentiful manuring, and sufficient mulch- 
ing, are the powerful auxiliaries to help them forward in the good 
work. 

It is, of course, impossible for us to tell our readers how to 
arrange trees tastefully and well, under all circumstances, in this 
short chapter. We can offer them, however, two or three hints as 
to arrangement, which they may perhaps profit by. 

The first principle in ornamental planting, is to study the charac- 
ter of the place to be improved, and to plant in accordance with it. 
If your place has breadth^ and simplicity, and fine open views, plant 
in groups, and rather sparingly, so as to heighten and adorn the 
landscape, not shut out and obstruct the beauty of prospect whicli 
nature has placed before your eyes. Scattered groups, with con- 



HOW TO ARRANGE COUNTRY PLACES. l7l 

tinuous readies or vistas between, j^roduce the best effect in sucL 
situations. In other and more remote parts of the place, greater 
density of foliage may serve as a contrast. 

In residences where there is little or no distant view, the con- 
trary jilan must be pursued. Intricacy and variety must be created 
by planting. Walks must be led in various directions, and con- 
cealed from each other by thickets, and masses of shrubs and trees, 
and occasionally rich masses of foliage ; not forgetting to heighten 
all, however, by an occasional contrast of broad, unbroken surface 
of lawn. 

In all country places, and especially in small ones, a great object 
to be kept in view in planting, is to produce as perfect seclusion 
and jirivacy within the grounds as possible. We do not entirely 
feel that to be our own, which is indiscriminately enjoyed by each j ' 
passer-by, and every man's individuality and home-feeling is invaded ' 
by the presence of unbidden guests. Therefore, while you preserve 
the beauty of the view, shut out, by boundary belts and thickets, all 
eyes but those that are fairly within your own grounds. This will 
enable you to feel at home all over your place, and to indulge your 
individual taste in walking, riding, reciting your next speech or 
sermon, or wearing any peculiarly rustic costume, without being 
suspected of being a " queer fellow " by any of your neighbors ; while 
it will add to the general beauty and interest of the country at 
large, — since, in passing a fine place, we always imagine it finer 
than it is, if a boundary plantation, by concealing it, forces us to 
depend wholly on the imagination. 



XII. 



THE MANAGEMENT OF LARGE COUNTRY PLACES. 

March, 1851. 

COUNTRY places that may properly be called ornamental, are 
increasing so fast, especially in the neighborhood of the large 
cities, that a word or two more, touching their treatment, will not 
be looked upon as out of place here. 

All our country residences may readily be divided into two 
classes. The first and largest class, is the suburban place of from 
five to twenty or thirty acres ; the second is the country-seat, prop- 
erly so called, which consists of from thirty to five hundred or more 
acres. 

In all suburban residences, from the limited extent of gTOund, 
and the desire to get the utmost beauty from it, the whole, or at 
least a large part of the ornamental portion, must be considered 
only as pleasure-grounds — a term used to denote a garden scene, 
consisting of trees, shrubs, and flowers, generally upon a basis of 
lawn, laid out in walks of difterent styles, and kept in the highest 
order. The aim, in this kind of residence, is to produce the great- 
est possible variety within a given space, and to attain the utmost 
beauty of gardening as an «?•<, by the highest keeping and culture 
which the means of the proprietor will permit. 

Of this kind of pleasure-ground residence, we have numberless 
excellent examples — and perhaps nowhere more admirable specimens 
than in the neighborhood of Boston. Both in design and execution, 
(these little places will, at the present moment, bear very favorable 
comparison with many in older countries. The practical manage- 



THE MANAGEMENT OF LARGE COUNTRY PLACES. 173 

merit of such places is also very well understood, and they need no 
especial mention in these remarks. 

But in the larger country places there are ten instances of fail- 
ure for one of success. This is not owing to the want of natural 
beauty, for the sites are picturesque, the surface varied, and the woods 
and plantations excellent. The failure consists, for the most part, in 
a certain incongruity and want of distinct character in the treatment 
of the place as a whole. They are too large to be kept in order as 
pleasure-grounds, while they are not laid out or treated as parks. 
The grass which stretches on all sides of the house, is partly mown, 
for lawn, and partly for hay ; the lines of the farm and the ornamental 
portion of the grounds, meet in a confused and unsatisfactory manner, 
and the result is a residence pretending to be much superior to a 
common farm, and yet not rising to the dignity of a really tasteful 
country-seat. 

It appears to us that a species of country places particularly 
adapted to this country, has not, as yet, been attempted, though it 
offers the largest possible satisfaction at the least cost. 

We mean a place which is a combination of the park-like and 
pastoral landscape. A place in which the chief features should be 
tine forest trees, either natural or planted, and scattered over a sur- 
face of grass, kept short by the pasturage of fine cattle. A place, 
in short, where sylvan and pastoral beauty, added to large extent and 
great facility of management, would cost no more than a much 
smaller demesne, where a large part is laid out, planted, and kept 
in an expensive though still unsatisfactory manner. 

There are sites of this kind, already prettily wooded, which may 
be had in many desirable localities, at much cheaper rates than the 
improved sites. On certain portions of the Hudson, for instance, 
we could purchase, to-day, finely wooded sites and open glades, in 
the midst of fine scenery — in fact what could, with very trifling ex- 
pense be turned into a natural park — at $60 per acre, while the im- 
proved sites will readily command $200 or $300 per acre. 

Considerable familiarity with the country-seats on the Hudson, 
enables us to state that, for the most part, few persons keep up a 
fine country place, counting all the products of the farm-land at- 
tached to it, without being more or less out of pocket at the end of 



17,4 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

the year. And yet there are very few of the large places that can 
be looked upon as examples of tolerable keeping. 

The explanation of this lies in the high price of all kinds of la- 
bor — which costs us nearly double or treble what it does on the 
other side of the Atlantic, and the comparatively small profits of 
land managed in the expensive way common on almost all farms 
attached to our Atlantic country-seats. The remedy for this unsat- 
isfactory condition of the large country places is, we think, a very 
simple one — that of turning a large part of their areas into park 
i meadow, wad. feeding it, instead of mowing and cultivating it. 

The great and distinguishing beauty of England, as every one 
knows, is its parks. And yet the English parks are only very large 
meadows, studded with oaks and elms — and grazed — 'profitahhj 
grazed^ by deer, cattle, and sheep. We believe it is a commonly 
received idea in this country, with those who have not travelled 
abroad, that English parks are portions of highly-dressed scenery — 
at least that they are kept short by frequent mowing, etc. It is an 
entire mistake. The mown lawn with its polished garden scenery, 
is confined to the pleasure-grounds proper — a spot of gTcater or less 
I size, immediately surrounding the house, and whoUy separated from 
i the park by a terrace wall, or an iron fence, or some handsome 
' architectural barrier. The park, which generally comes quite up to 
the house on one side, receives no other attention than such as be- 
longs to the care of the animals that graze in it. As most of these 
parks afford excellent jjasturage, and though apparently one wide, 
unbroken surface, they are really subdivided into large fields, by 
wire or other invisible fences, they actually pay a very fair income 
to the proprietor, in the shape of good beef, mutton, and venison. 

Certainly, nothing can be a more beautiful sight in its way, than 
the numerous herds of deer, short-horned cattle and fine sheep, 
which embroider and give life to the scenery of an Enghsh country 
home of this kind.* There is a quiet pastoral beauty, a spacious- 

* All attempts to render our native deer really tame in home grounds 

have, 80 far as we know, failed among us — though with patience the thiiig 

J may doubtless be done. It would be well worth while to import the finer 

}i breeds of the English deer, which are thoroughly domesticated in their habits, 

I ' and the most beautiful animals for a park. 



THE MANAGEMENT OF LARGE COUNTRY PLACES. 175 

ness and dignity, and a simple feeling of nature about it which no 
highly decorated pleasure-grounds or garden scenery can approach, 
as the continual surrounding of a country residence. It is, in fact, 
the poetical idea of Arcadia, a sort of ideal nature — softened, refined, 
and ennobled, without being made to look artificial. 

Of course, any thing like English parks, so far as regards extent, 
is almost out of the question here ; simply because land and for- 
tunes are widely divided here, instead of being kept in large bodies, 
intact, as in England. Still, as the first class country-seats of the 
Hudson now command from $50,000 to $75,000, it is evident that 
there is a gi-owing taste for space and beauty in the private do- 
mains of republicans. What we wish to suggest now, is, simply, 
that the greatest beauty and satisfaction may be had here, as in Eng- 
land — (for the plan really suits our limited means better), by treat- 
ing the bulk of the ornamental portion as open park pasture — and 
thus getting the greatest space and beauty at the least original ex- 
penditure, and with the largest annual profit. 

To some of our readers who have never seen the thing, the idea 
of a park, pastured by animals almost to the very door, will seesn 
at variance with all decorum and elegance. This, however, is not 
actually the case. The house should either stand on a raised ter- 
race of turf, which, if it is a fine mansion, may have a handsome 
terrace wall, or if a cottage, a pretty rustic or trellis fence, to sepa- 
rate it from the park. Directly around the house, and sti-etching 
on one or more sides, in the rear, lie the more highly dressed portions 
of the scene, which may be a flower-garden and shrubbery set in 
a small bit of lawn kept as short as velvet — or may be pleasure- 
grounds, fruit, and kitchen-gardens, so multiplied as to equal the 
largest necessities of the place and family. All that is to be borne 
in mind is, that the park may be as large as you can afford to pur- 
chase — for it may be kept up at a profit — while the pleasure- 
grounds and garden scenery, may, with this management, be com- 
pressed into the smallest space actually deemed necessary to the 
place — thereby lessening labor, and bestowing that labor, in a con- 
centrated space, where it will tell. 

The practical details of keeping the stock upon such a place, are 
familiar to almost every farmer. Of course, in a country place, only 



176 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

comely animals would be kept, and a preference would be given to 
breeds of fine stock that " take on flesh " readily, and command the 
best price in the market. In cases where an interest is taken in breed- 
ing cattle, provision must be made, in the shape of hay and shelter, 
for the whole year round ; but we imagine the most profitable, as 
well as least troublesome mode, to the majority of gentlemen pro- 
prietors, would be to buy the suitable stock in the spring, put it in 
' good condition, and sell it again in the autumn. The sheep would 
also require to be folded at night to prevent the flocks from being 
ravaged by dogs. 

With this kind of arrangement and management of a country 
place, the owner would be in a position to reap the greatest enjoy- 
ment with the least possible care. To country gentlemen ignorant 
of farming, such an extent of park, with its drives and walks, along 
with its simplicity of management, would be a relief from a multi- 
tude of embarrassing details ; while to those who have tried, to their 
cost, the expenses of keeping a large place in high order, it would 
be an equal relief to the debtor side of the cash account. 



XIII. 

COUNTRY PLACES IN AUTUMN. 

December, 1850. 

NOVEMBER, whicli is one of the least interesting months to those 
who come into the country to admire the freshness of spring 
or the fuhiess of summer and early autumn, is one of the most in- 
teresting to those who live in the country, or who have country 
places which they wish to improve. 

When the leaves have all dropped from the trees, when the en- 
chantment and illusion of summer are over, and " the fall " (our ex- 
pressive American word for autumn) has stripped the glory from 
the sylvan landscaj^e, then the rural improver puts on his spectacles, 
and looks at his demesne with practical and philosophical eyes. 
Taking things at their worst, as they appear now, he sets about find- 
ing out what improvements can be made, and how the surroundings 
which make his home, can be so arranged as to offer a fairer picture 
to the eye, or a larger share of enjoyments and benefits to the 
family, in the year that is to come. 

The end of autumn is the best month to buy a country place, 
and the best to improve one. You see it then in the barest skeleton 
expression of ugliness or beauty — with all opportunity to learn its 
defects, all its Aveak points visible, all its possible capacities and sug- 
gestions for improvement laid bare to you. If it satisfy you now, 
either in its present aspect, or in what promise you see in it of ordei- 
and beauty after your moderate plans are carried out, you may buy 
it, with the full assurance that you will not have cause to repent 
when you learn to like it better as seen in tlie fresher and fairer as 
pL'ct of its summer loveliness. 
12 



178 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

As a season for rural improvements, the fall is preferable to the 
spring, partly because the earth is dryer, and more easily moved and 
worked, and partly because there is more time to do well what we 
undertake. In the middle States, fine autumnal weather is often 
continued till the middle of December ; and as long as the ground 
is open and mellow, the planting of hardy trees may be done with 
the best chances of success. The surface may be smoothed, drains 
made, walks and roads laid out, and all the heavier operations on 
the surfjice of the earth — so requisite as a groundwork for lawns and 
pleasure-grounds, kitchen or flower-gardens — may be carried on 
more cheaply and efficiently than amid the bustle and hurry of 
spring. And when sharp frosty nights fairly set in, then is the time 
to commence the grander operations of transplanting. Then is the 
time for mo\'ing large trees — elms, maples, etc. ; a few of which will 
give more effect to a new and bare site than thousands of the young 
things, which are the despair of all improvers of little faith and ar- 
dent imaginations. With two or three " hands," a pair of horses or 
oxen, a " stone boat," or low sled, and some ropes or " tackle," the 
removal of trees twenty-five feet high, and six or eight inches in the 
diameter of the stem, is a very simple and easy process. A little 
practice will enable a couple of men to do it most perfectly and 
efliciently ; and if only free-growing trees, like elms, maples, lin- 
dens, or horse-chestnuts, are chosen, there is no more doubt of suc- 
cess than in planting a currant bush. Two or three points we may, 
however, repeat, for the benefit of the novice, viz., to prepare the 
soil thoroughly by digging a large hole, trenching it two-and-a-half 
feet deep, and filling it with rich soil ; to take up the tree with a 
good mass of roots, ijiclosed in a ball of frozen earth ;* and to re- 
duce the ends of the limbs, evenly all over the top, in order to lessen 
the demand for sustenance, made on the roots the first summer after 
removal. 

This is not only the season to plant very hardy trees ; it is also 

* This is easily done by digging a trench all round, leaving a ball about 
four or five feet in diameter ; undermining it well, and leaving it to freeze for 
one or two nights. Then turn the tree down, place the uplifted side of the 
ball upon the "stone boat;" right the trunk, and get the whole ball firmly 
upon the sled, and then the horses will drag it easily to it.-* new position. 



COUNTRY PLACES IN AUTUMN. 179 

the time io feed those which are already established, and are living 
on too scanty an income. And how many trees are there upon 
lawns and in gardens — shade trees and fruit trees — that are hterally 
so poor that they are starving to death ! Perhaps they have once 
been luxuriant and thrifty, and have borne the finest fruit and blos- 
soms, so that then- owners have smiled, and said pleasant words in 
their praise, as they passed beneath their boughs. Then they had 
a good subsistence ; the native strength of the soil passed into their 
limbs, and made them stretch out and expand with all the vigor of 
a young Hercules. Now, alas, they are mossy and decrepit — the 
leaves small — the blossoms or fruit indifierent. And yet they are 
not old. Nay, they are quite in the prime of life. If they could 
speak to their master or mistress, they would say — " First of all, give 
us something to eat. Here are we, tied hand and foot to one spot, 
where we have been feeding this dozen or twenty years, until we 
are actually reduced to our last morsel. What the gardener has oc- 
casionally given us, in his scanty top-dressing of manure, has been 
as a mere crust thrown out to a famished man. If you wish us to 
salute you next year with a glorious drapery of green leaves — the 
deepest, richest green, and start into new forms of luxuriant growth 
— 'feed us. Dig a trench around us, at the extremity of our roots, 
throw away all the old worn-out soil you find there, and replace it 
with some fresh soil from the lower comer of some rich meadow, 
where it has lain fallow for years, gi'owing richer eveiy day. Mingle 
this with some manm-e, some chopped sods — any thing that can 
allay our thirst and satisfy our hunger for three or four years to 
come, and see what a new leaf — yes, what volumes of new leaves 
we will turn over for you next year. We are fruit trees, perhaps, 
and you wish us to bear fair and excellent fruit. Then you must 
also feed us. The soil is thin, and contains little that we can digest ; 
or it is old, and ' sour ' for the want of being aired. Remove all 
the earth for several yards about us, baring some of our roots — and 
perhaps shortening a few. Trench the ground, when our new roots 
will ramble, next year, twenty inches deep. Mingle the top and 
bottom soil, rejecting the worst parts of it, and making the void good 
— very good — by manure, ashes, and decaying leaves. Then you 



180 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

shall have bushels of fair and fine pears and apples, where you now 
have pecks of spotted and deformed fruit." 

Such is the sermon which the " tongues in trees " preach to those 
who listen to them at this season of the year. We do not mean to 
poets, or lovers of nature (for to them, they have other and more 
romantic stories to tell) ; but to the earnest, practical, working 
owners of the soil, — especially to those who gi-udge a little food and 
a Httle labor, in order that the trees may live contented, healthy, 
beautiful, and fruitful lives. We have written it down here, in 
order that our readers, when they walk round their gardens and 
grounds, and think " the work of the season is all done," may not 
be wholly blind and deaf to the fact that the trees are as capable, 
in their way, of hunger and thirst, as the cattle in the farm-yards ; 
and since, at the oftenest, they only need feeding once a year, now 
is the cheapest and the best time for doing it. The very frosts of 
winter creep into the soil, loosened by stirring at this season, and 
fertilize, while they crumble and decompose it. Walk about, then, 
and listen to the sermon which your hungTy trees preach. 



XIV. 

A CHAPTER ON LAWNS. 

November, 1846. 

LANDSCAPE GARDENING embraces, in the circle of its per- 
fections, many elements of beauty ; certainly not a less number 
than the modern chemists count as the simplest conditions of mat- 
ter. But with something of the feeling of the old philosophers, who 
believed that earth, air, fire and water, included every thing in na- 
ture, we like to go back to plain and simple facts, of breadth and 
importance enough to embrace a multitude of little details. The 
great elements then, of landscape gardening, as we understand it, 
are trees and grass. 

Trees — delicate, beautiful, gi'and, or majestic trees — pliantly 
answering to the wooing of the softest west wind, hke the willow ; 
or bravely and sturdily defying centuries of storm and tempest, like 
the oak — they are indeed the great " princes, potentates, and peo- 
ple," of our realm of beauty. But it is not to-day that we are per- 
mitted to sing triumphal songs in their praise. 

In behalf of the grass — the turf, the lawn, — then, we ask our 
readers to listen to us for a short time. And by this we do not 
mean to speak of it in a moral sense, as did the inspired preacher 
of old, when he gravely told us that " all flesh is grass ;" or in a 
style savoring of the vanities of costume, as did Prior, when he 
wrote the couplet, 

" Those limbs in lawn and softest silk arrayed, 
From sunbeams guarded, and of winds afraid." 



182 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

Or with the keen relish of the English jockey, whose only idea of 
*' the turf," is that of the place nature has specially provided him 
upon which to race horses. 

Neither do we look upon grass, at the present moment, with the 
eyes of our friend Tom Thrifty, the farmer, who cuts " three tons to 
the acre." We have, in our present mood, no patience ^\dth the tall 
and gigantic /oc^c^er, by this name, that grows in the fertile bottoms 
of the West, so tall that the largest Durham is lost to view while 
walking through it. 

No — we love most the soft turf which, beneath the flickering 
shadows of scattered trees, is thrown like a smooth natural carpet 
over the swelling outline of the smiling earth. Grass, not grown 
into tall meadows, or wild bog tussocks, but softened and refined by 
the frequent touches of the patient mower, till at last it becomes a 
perfect wonder of tufted freshness and verdure. Such grass, in 
short, as Shakspeare had in his mind, when he said, in words since 
■echoed ten thousand times, 

"How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon that bank;" 

•or Ariosto, in his Orlando — 

"The approaching night, not knowing where to pass, 
She checks her reins, and on the velvet grass, 
Beneath the umbrageous trees, her form she throws, 
To cheat the tedious houi-s with brief repose." 

In short, the ideal of gTass is a laton, which is, to a meadow, 
what " Bishop's lawn " is to homespun Irish linen. 

With such a lawn, and large and massive trees, one has indeed 
the most enduring sources of beauty in a country residence. Per- 
petual neatness, freshness and verdure in the one ; ever expanding 
beauty, variety and grandeur in the other — what more does a rea- 
sonable man desire of the beautiful about him in the country? 
Must we add flowers, exotic plants, fruits ? Perhaps so, but they 
are all, in an ornamental light, secondary to trees and grass, where 
these can be had in perfection. Only one other grand element is 
.needed to make our landscape garden complete — tvater. A river, 
or a lake, in which the skies and the " tufted trees " may see them- 



A CHAPTER ON LAWNS. 183 

selves reflected, is ever an indispensable feature to a perfect land- 
scape. 

Hoiv to obtain a fine lawn., is a question whicli has no doubt 
already puzzled many of our readers. They have thought, perhaps, 
that it would be quite sufficient to sow with grass seeds, or lay down 
neatly with sods, any plat of common soil, to mow it occasionally, 
to be repaid by the perpetual softness and verdure of an " English 
lawn." 

They have found, however, after a patient trial in several seasons, 
that an American summer, so bright and sunny as to give us, in our 
fruits, almost the ripeness and prodigality of the tropics, does not, 
like that of Britain, ever moist and humid, naturally favor the con- 
dition of fine lawns. 

Beautiful as our lawns usually are in May, June, September, and 
October, yet in July and August, they too often lose that freshness 
and verdure which is for them what the rose-bloom of youth is to a 
beauty of seventeen — their most captivating feature. 

There are not wanting admirers of fine lawns, who, witnessing 
this summer searing, have pronounced it an impossible thing to pro- 
duce a fine lawn in this country. To such an opinion we can never 
subscribe — for the very sufficient reason that we have seen, over and 
over again, admirable lawns wherever they have been properly 
treated. Fine lawns are therefore possible in all the northern half 
of the Union. What then are the necessary conditions to be ob- 
served — what the preliminary steps to be taken in order to obtain 
them ? Let us answer in a few words — deep soil, the 2i^'oper kinds 
of grasses, and frequent mowing. 

First of all, for us, deep soil. In a moist climate, where showers 
or fogs give all vegetable nature a weekly succession of baths, one 
may raise a pretty bit of turf on a bare board, with half an inch of 
soil. • But here it does not require much observation or theory to 
teach us, that if any plant is to maintain its verdure through a long 
and bright summer, with alternate periods of wet and drouth, it 
must have a deep soil in which to extend its roots. We have seen 
the roots of common clover, in trenched soU, which had descended 
to the depth of four feet ! A surface drouth, or dry weather, had 
little power over a plant whose little fibres were in the cool moist 



184 LANDSCAPK GARDENING. 

understratum of that depth. And a hiwn which is well established 
on thoroughly trenched soil, will remain, even in midsummer, of 
a fine dark verdure, when upon tlie same soil untrcnched, every 
little period of dryness would give a brown and faded look to the 
turf. 

The most essential point being a deep soil, we need not say that 
in our estimation, any person about to lay down a permanent lawn, 
whether of fifty acres or fifty feet square, must provide himself 
against failure by this groundwork of success. 

Little plats of ground are easily trenched with the spade. 
Large lawn surfaces are only to be managed (unless expense is not 
a consideration), with the subsoil plough. With this grand de- 
veloper of resources, worked by two yoke of oxen, let the whole 
area to be laid down be thoroughly moved and broken up two feet 
deep. The autumn or early winter is the best season for perform- 
ing this, because the surface Avill have ample time to settle, and 
take a proper shape before spring. 

After being ploughed, subsoiled and harrowed, let the whole 
surface be entirely cleared of even the smallest stone. It is quite 
impossible to mow a lawn well that is not as smooth as ground can 
be made. Manure, if necessary, should be applied while subsoil- 
ing. We say, if necessary, for if the land is strong and in good 
heart, it is not needed. The object in a lawn, it will be remem- 
bered, is not to obtain a heavy crop of hay, but simply to main- 
tain perpetual verdure. Rich soil would defeat our object by 
causing a rank growth and coarse stalks, when we wish a short 
growth and soft herbage. Let the soil, therefore, be good, but not 
rich ; depth, and the power of retaining moisture, are the truly 
needful qualities here. If the land is very light and sandy (the 
worst naturally), we would advise a mixture of loam or clay ; 
which indeed subsoiling, when the substratiun is hea\y, will often 
most readily effect. 

The soil, thus prepared, lies all winter to mellow and settle, 
with the kindly influences of the atmosphere and frost upon it. 

As early in the spring, as it is in friable working condition, stir 
it lightly with the plough and harrow, and make the surface as 
smooth as possible — we do not mean level, for if the ground is not 



A CHAPTER ON LAWNS. 185 

a flat, nothing is so agi-eeable as gentle swells or undulations. But 
quite smooth the surface must be. 

Now for the sowing ; and here a former would advise you to 
*' seed down with oats," or some such established agricultural pre- 
cept. Do not listen to him for a moment ! What you desire is a 
close turf, and therefore sow nothing but grass ; and do not suppose 
you are going to assist a weak growing plant by sowing along 
with it a coarser growing one to starve it. 

Choose, if possible, a calm day, and sow your seed as evenly as 
you can. The seed to be sown is a mixture of red-top [Af/ostis 
vulr/aris) and white clover (TrifoUum repens), which are hardy 
short grasses, and on the whole make the best and most enduring- 
lawn for this climate.* The proportion should be about three- 
fourths red-top to one-fourth white clover. The seed should be 
perfectly clean; then sow four bushels of it to the acre ; not a pint 
less as you hope to walk upon velvet ! Finish the whole by rolling 
the surface evenly and neatly. 

A few soft vernal showers, and bright sunny days, will show you 
a coat of verdure bright as emerald. By the first of June, you will 
find it necessary to look about for your mower. 

And this reminds us to say a word about a lawn scythe. You 
must not suppose, as |piany ignorant people do, that a lawn can be 
mown with a brush hook, or a common meadow scythe for cutting 
hay in the fastest possible manner. It can only be done with a 
broad-bladed scythe, of the most perfect temper and quality, which 
Avill hold an edge like a razor. The easiest way to get such an 
article is to inquire at any of the agricultural warehouses in the 
great cities, for an " English lawn scythe." When used, it should 
be set low, so as to be level with the plane of the grass ; when the 
mower is erect, he will mow without leaving any marks, and with 
the least possible exertion. 

After your lawn is once fairly established, there are but two 
secrets in keeping it perfect — frequent mowing and rolling. With- 
out the first, it will soon degenerate into a coarse meadow ; the 

* "We learn the blue-grass of Kentucky makes a fine lawn at the West ; 
but with this we have no experience. 



186 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

latter will render it firmer, closer, shorter, and finer every time it is 
repeated. 

A good lawn must be mown every ten days or fortnight. The 
latter may be assumed as the proper average time in this climate. 
Ten days is the usual limit of growth for the best kept lawns in 
England, and it is surprising how soon a coarse and wiiy bit of 
sward will become smooth turf, under the magic influences of 
regular and oft repeated mowing and rolling. 

Of course, a lawn can only be cut when the grass is damp, and 
rolling is best performed directly after rain. The English always 
roll a few hours before using the scythe. On large lawns, a donkey 
or light horse may be advantageously employed in performing this 
operation. 

There are but few good lawns yet in America ; but we have 
great pleasure in observing that they are rapidly multiplying. 
Though it may seem a heavy tax to some, yet no expenditure in 
ornamental gardening is, to our mind, productive of so much beau- 
ty as that incurred in producing a well-kept lawn. Without this 
feature, no place, however great its architectural beauties, its charms 
of scenery, or its collections of flowers and shrubs, can be said to 
deserve consideration in point of landscape gardening ; and with it 
the humble cottage grounds will possess a charm which is, among 
pleasure-grounds, what a refined and graceful manner is in society 
— a universal passport to admiration. 

There are two residences in this country which so far surpass all 
others in the perfection of their lawns, that we hope to be pardoned 
for holding them up to commendation. These are the Upper 
Livingston Manor, the seat of Mrs. Mary Livingston, about 
seven miles from Hudson, N. Y., and the Camac Cottage, near 
Philadelphia.* 

The lawn at the Livingston Manor is very extensive and park- 
like — certainly the largest well-kept lawn in America, and we wish 
all our readers who are skeptical regarding an American lawn, 
could see and feel its many excellent perfections. They would only 

* See Downing's " Landscape Gardening," pp. 45, 58. 



A CHAPTER ON LAWNS. 187 

be still more surprised when they were told how few men keep so 
large a surface in the highest order. 

The Camac Cottage is a gem of neatness and high keeping. 
We hope Pennsylvanians at least, who, we think, have perhaps our 
best lawn climate, will not fail to profit by so admirable an example 
as they will find there, of what Spenser quaintly and prettily calls 
" the grassie grouvd^ 



XV. 



MR. TUDOR'S GARDEN AT NAHANT. 

August, 1847. 

A FEW miles east of Boston, boldly jutting into the Atlantic, 
lies the celebrated promontory of Nahant. Nature has made 
it remarkable for the grandeur and bleakness of its position. It is 
a headland of a hundred acres, more or less, sprinkled with a light 
turf, and girded about with bold cliffs of rock, against which the 
sea dashes with infinite grandeur and majesty. No tree anciently 
deigned to raise its head against the rude breezes that blow here in 
winter, as if tempest-driven by Boreas himself ; and that, even in 
summer, make of Nahant, with its many cottages and hotels, a re- 
frigerator, for the preservation of the dissolving souls and bodies of 
the exhausted population of Boston, in the months of July and 
August. 

At the present moment, the interesting feature at Nahant, after r 

the Ocean itself, is, strange to say, one of the most remarkable |, 

gardens in existence. We mean the grounds of the private resi- :i|i 

dence of Frederic Tudor, Esq., a gentleman well known in the four !^ 

quarters of the world, as the originator of the present successful }\ 

mode of shipping ice to the most distant tro2:»ical countries ; and, i 

we may here add, for the remarkable manner in which he has again 
triumphed over nature, by transforming some acres of her bleakest 
and most sterile soil into a spot of luxuriant verdure, fruitfulness, 
and beauty. 

To appreciate the difficulties with which this gentleman had to 
contend, or, as we might more properly say, which stimulated aU 



MR. TUDOR S GARDEN AT NAHANT. 189 

his efforts, we must recall to mind that, frequently, in high winds, 
the salt spray drives over the whole of Nahant ; that, until Mr. 
Tudor began his improvements, not even a bush grew naturally on 
the whole of its area, and that the east winds, which blow from the 
Atlantic in the spring, are sufficient to render all gardening possi- 
bilities in the usual way nearly as chimerical as cultivating the vol- 
canoes of the moon. 

Mr. Tudor's residence there now, is a curious and striking illus- 
tration of the triumph of art over nature, and as it involves some 
points that we think most instructive to horticulturists, we trust he 
will pardon us for drawing the attention of our readers to it at the 
present time. Our first visit to his grounds was made in July, 1845, 
one of the driest and most unfavorable seasons for the growth of 
trees and plants that we remember. But at that time, perhaps the 
best possible one to test the merits of the mode of cultivation 
adopted, we found Mr. Tudor's garden in a more flourishing condi- 
tion than any one of the celebrated places about Boston. The 
average growth of the thriftiest standard fruit-trees about Boston, 
at that time, was little more than six inches to a foot. In this Na- 
hant garden it was two feet, and we measured shoots on some of 
the standard trees three feet in length. By far the largest and finest 
cherries we tasted that season, were from trees growing there ; and 
there was an apparent health and vigor about every species within 
its boundar}'', which would have been creditable any where, but 
which at Nahant, and in a season so unfavorable, quite astonished us. 

The two strong points in this gentleman's gardening operations 
at Nahant, appear to us to be the following : First, the employment 
of screens to break the force of the wind, producing thereby an ar- 
tificial climate ; and second, the thorough preparation of the soil by 
trenching and manuring. 

Of course, even the idea of a place worthy of the name of a 
garden in this bald, sea-girt cape, was out of the question, unless 
some mode of overcoming the violence of the gales, and the bad 
effects of the salt spray, could be devised. The plan Mr. Tudor has 
adopted is, we believe, original with him, and is at once extremely 
simple, and perfectly effective. 

It consists merely of two, or at most three, parallel rows of high 



190 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

open fences, made of rough slats or palings, nailed in the common 
vertical manner, about three inches wide, and a space of a couple 
of inches left between them. These paling fences are about sixteen 
feet high, and usually form a double row (on the most exposed side 
a triple row), round the whole garden. The distance between that 
on the outer boundary and the next interior one is about four feet. 
The garden is also intersected here and there by tall trellis fences 
of the same kind, all of which help to increase the shelter, while 
some of those in the interior serve as frames for training trees 
upon. 

The effect of this double or triple barrier of high paling is mar- 
vellous. Although like a common paling, apparently open and per- 
mitting the wind free passage, yet in practice it is found entirely 
to rob the gales of their violence, and their saltness. To use Mr. 
Tudor's words, " it completely sifts the air." After great storms, 
when the outer barrier will be found covered with a coating of salt, 
the foliage in the garden is entirely uninjured. It acts, in short, 
like a rustic veil, that admits just so much of the air, and in such a 
manner as most to promote the growth of the trees, while it breaks 
and wards off all the deleterious influences of a genuine ocean 
breeze — so pernicious to tender leaves and shoots. 

Again, regarding the luxuriant growth, which surprised us in a 
place naturally a sterile gravel, we were greatly struck with the ad- 
ditional argument which it furnished us with in support of our fa- 
vorite theory of the value of trenching in this climate. Mr. Tudor 
has, at incredible labor, ti'enched and manured the soil of his garden 
three feet deep. The consequence of this is, that, although it is 
mainly of a light, porous texture, yet the depth to which it has been 
stirred and cultivated, renders it proof against the effects of drouth. 
In the hottest and driest seasons, the growth here is luxui-iant, and 
no better proof can be desired of the great value of thoi-oughly 
trenching, as the first and indispensable foundation of all good cul- 
ture, even in thin and poor soils. 

It is worthy of record, among the results of Mr. Tudor's culture, 
that, two years after the principal plantation of his fruit-trees was 
made, he carried off the second prize for pears, at the annual exhi- 
bition of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, among dozens of 



MR. TUDOR's garden AT NAHANT. 191 

zealous competitors, and with the fruit most carefully grown in that 
vicinity. 

We have observed also, and noted as indicative of no small de- 
gree of practical skill, that in various quarters of the garden are 
standard trees, ajiples and pears especially, that have been trans- 
planted from Boston, with large heads and trunks, six or eight inches 
in diameter, and are now in a state of complete luxuriance and 
fi'uitfulness. 

There are, of course, but few individuals who have the desire 
and the means thus to weave a spell of freshness and beauty over a 
spot which nature has created so stern and bald ; perhaps there are 
still fewer who would have the courage to plan and carry out im- 
provements of this kind, to the attainment of so beautiful a result, 
in the very teeth of the elements. But there are many who may 
learn something valuable from Mr. Tudor's labor in the cause of 
Horticulture. There are, for example, hundreds along the sea-coasts, 
to whom gardening of any sort is nearly impossible, from the inju- 
rious effects of breezes loaded with salt water. There are, again, 
many beautiful sites that we could name on the shores of some of 
our great inland lakes, and the number is every day increasing, sites 
where the soil is deep and excellent, and the skies warm and bright, 
but the violence of the vernal and autumnal winds is such, that the 
better culture of the orchard and garden makes little progress. 

In all such sites, Mr. Tudor's Nahant screens for sifting the air, 
will at once obviate all the difficulty, temper the wind to the tender 
buds, and make for the spot a soft climate in a naturally harsh and 
bleak aspect. 



XVI. 

A VISIT TO MONTGOMERY PLACE. 

October, 1847. 

THERE are few persons, among what may be called the travelling 
class, who know the beauty of the finest American country- 
seats. Many are ignorant of the very existence of those rural gems 
that embroider the landscapes here and there, in the older and 
wealthier parts of the country. Held in the retirement of private 
life, they are rarely visited, except by those who enjoy the friend- 
ship of their possessors. The annual tourist by the railroad and 
steamboat, who moves through wood and meadow and river and 
hill, with the celerity of a rocket, and then fancies he knows the 
country, is in a state of total ignorance of their many attractions ; 
and those whose taste has not led them to seek this species of plea- 
sure, are equally unconscious of the landscape-gardening beauties 
that are developing themselves every day, with the advancing pros- 
perity of the country. 

It has been our good fortune to know a great number of the 
finest of these delightful residences, to revel in their beauties, and 
occasionally to chronicle their charms. If we have not sooner 
spoken at large of Montgomery Place, second as it is to no seat in 
America, for its combination of attractions, it has been rather that 
we were silent — like a devout gazer at the marvellous beauty of 
the Apollo — from excess of enjoyment, than from not dee])Iy 
feeling all its varied mysteries of pleasure-grounds and lawns, wood 
and water. 

Montgomery Place is one of the superb old seats belonging to 



A VISIT TO MONTGOMERY PLACE. 193 

the Livingston family, and situated in that part of Dutchess coimty 
bordering on the Hudson. About one hundred miles from New- 
York, the swift river steamers reach this part of the river in six 
hours ; and the guest, who leaves the noisy din of the town in the 
early morning, finds himself, at a little past noon, plunged amid all 
the seclusion and quiet of its leafy groves. 

And this accessible perfect seclusion is, perhaps, one of the most 
captivating features in the life of the country gentleman, whose lot 
is cast on this part of the Hudson. For twenty miles here, on the 
eastern shore, the banks are nearly a continuous succession of fine 
seats. The landings are by no means towns, or large villages, 
with the busy air of trade, but quiet stopping places, serving the 
convenience of the neighboring residents. Surrounded by exten- 
sive pleasure-grounds, fine woods or parks, even the adjoining 
estates are often concealed from that part of the grounds around the 
house, and but for the broad Hudson, which forms the grand feature 
in all these varied landscapes — the Hudson always so full of life in 
its numberless bright sails and steamers — one might fancy himself a 
thousand miles from all crowded and busy haunts of men. 

Around Montgomery Place, indeed, this air of quiet and seclu- 
sion lurks more bewitchingly than in any other seat whose hospitality 
we have enjoyed. Whether the charm lies in the deep and mysterious 
wood, full of the echo of water-spirits, that forms the Northern 
boundary, or whether it grows out of a profound feeling of com- 
pleteness and perfection in foregrounds of old trees, and distances of 
calm serene mountains, we have not been able to divine ; but cer- 
tain it is that there is a spell in the very air, which is fatal to the 
energies of a great speculation. It is not, we are sure, the spot for 
a man to plan campaigns of conquest, and we doubt even whether 
the scholar, whose ambition it is 

"To scorn delights, 
And live laborious daj's" 

would not find something in the air of this demesne, so soothing as 
to dampen the fire of his great purposes, and dispose him to believe 
that there is more dignity in repose, than merit in action. 

There is not wanting something of the charm of historical asso- 
13 



194 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

ciation here. The estate derives its name from Gen, Montgomery, the 
hero and martyr of Quebec (whose portrait, among other fine family 
pictures, adorns the walls of tlie mansion). Mrs. Montgomery, after 
his lamented death on the heights of Abraham, resided here duiing 
the remainder of her life. At_ her death, ste bequeathed it to her 
brother, the Hon. Edward Livingston, our late Minister to France. 
Here this distinguished diplomatist and jurist passed, in elegant 
retirement, the leisure intervals of a life largely devoted to the service 
of the State, and hei-e still reside his family, whose greatest pleasure 
seems to be to add, if possible, every year, some admirable im- 
provement, or elicit some new charm of its extraordinary natural 
beauty. 

The age of Montgomery Place heightens its interest in no ordi- 
nary degree. Its richness of foliage, both in natural wood and 
planted trees, is one of its marked features. Indeed, so great is the 
variety and intricacy of scenery, caused by the leafy woods, thickets 
and bosquets, that one may pass days and even weeks here, and not 
thoroughly explore all its fine points — 

" Milles arbres, de ces lieux ondoyante parure 
Cliarme de I'odorat, de gout et des regards, 
Elegamment groupes, n^gligemment epars, 
Se fuyaient, s'approchaient, quelqiiefois a la vue 
Ouvraient dans la loiutaiu un sefene imprevue ; 
On, tombant jusqu'a, terre, et recourbaiit leurs bras 
Venaient d'un doux obstacle embarrasser leui-s pas 
Ou pendaient sur leur t^te en festons de verdure, 
Et de fleurs, en passant, semaient leur clievelure. 
Dirai-je ces forets d'arbustes, d'arbrisseaux, 
Entrela9ant en vo&te, en alcove, en berceaux, 
Leurs bras voluptueux, et leurs tiges fleuries ?" 

About four hundred acres comprise the estate called Mont- 
gomery Place, a very large part of which is devoted to pleasure- 
grounds and ornamental purposes. The ever-varied surface affords 
the finest scope for the numerous roads, drives, and walks, Avith 
which it abounds. Even its natural boundaries are admirable. 
On the west is the Hudson, broken by islands into an outline un- 
usually varied and picturesque. On the north, it is separated from 



A VISIT TO MONTGOMERY PLACE. 195 

Blithewood, the adjoining seat, by a wooded valley, in the depths of 
which runs a broad stream, rich in waterfalls. On the south is a 
rich oak wood, in the centre of which is a private drive. On the 
east it touches the post road. Here is the entrance gate, and from 
it leads a long and stately avenue of trees, like the approach to an 
old French chateau. Half-way up its length, the lines of planted trees 
give place to a tall wood, and this again is succeeded by the lawn, 
which opens in all its stately dignity, with increased effect after the 
deeper shadows of this vestibule-like wood. The eye is now caught 
at once by the fine specimens of hemlock, lime, ash and fir, 
whose proud heads and large trunks form the finest possible acces- 
sories to a large and spacious mansion, which is one of the best 
specimens of our manor houses. Built many years ago, in the most 
substantial manner, the edifice has been retouched and somewhat 
enlarged within a few years, and is at present both commodious, and 
architectural in character. 

Without going into any details of the interior, we may call at- 
tention to the unique effect of the pavilion, thirty feet wide, which 
forms the north wing of this house. It opens from the library and 
drawing-room by low windows. Its ribbed roof is supported by a 
tasteful series of columns and arches, in the style of an Italian ar- 
cade. As it is on the north side of the dwelling, its position is al- 
ways cool in summer ; and this coolness is still further increased by 
the abundant shade of tall old trees, whose heads cast a pleasant 
gloom, while their tall trunks allow the eye to feast on the rich 
landscape spread around it.* 

To attem^it to describe the scenery, which bewitches the eye, as 
it wanders over the wide expanse to the west fi-om this pavilion, 
would be but an idle eff"ort to make words express what even the 
pencil of the painter often fails to copy. As a foreground, imagine 
a large lawn waving in undulations of soft verdure, varied with fine 
gi'oups, and margined with rich belts of foliage. Its base is washed 
by the river, which is here a broad sheet of water, lying like a long 
lake beneath the eye. Wooded banks stretch along its margin. Its 
bosom is studded with islands, which are set like emeralds on its 

* See Downing's " Landscape Gardening," p. 4Y. 



196 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

pale blue bosom. Ou tlie opposite sliores, more than a mile distant, 
is seen a rich mingling of woods and corn-fields. But the crowning 
glory of tlie landscape is the background of mountains. The Kaat- 
skills, as seen from this jjart of the Hudson, are, it seems to us, more 
beautiful than any mountain scenery in the middle States. It is not 
merely that their outline is bold, and that the summit of Roundtop, 
rising three thousand feet above the surrounding country, gives an 
air of more grandeur than is usually seen, even in the Highlands ; 
but it is the color which renders the Kaatskills so captivating a 
feature in the landscape here. Never harsh or cold, like some of our 
finest hills. Nature seems to delight in casting a veil of the softest 
azure over these mountains — immortalized by the historian of Rip 
Van Winkle. Morning and noon, the shade only varies from softer 
to deeper blue. But the hour of sunset is the magical time for the 
fantasies of the color-genii of these mountains. Seen at this period, 
from the terrace of the pavilion of Montgomery Place, the eye is 
filled with wonder at the various dyes that bathe the receding hills 
— the most distant of which are twenty or thirty miles away. Azure, 
purple, violet, pale grayish-lilac, and the dim hazy hue. of the most 
distant cloud-rift, are all seen distinct, yet blending magically into 
each other in these receding hills. It is a spectacle of rare beauty , 
and he who loves tones of color, soft and dreamy as one of the 
mystical airs of a German maestro, should see the sunset fade into 
twilight fi'om the seats on this part of the Hudson. 

THE MORNING WALK. 

Leaving the terrace on the western front, the steps of the visitor, 
exploring Montgomery Place, are naturally directed towards the 
river bank. A path on the left of the broad laAvn leads one to the 
fanciful rustic-gabled seat, among a growth of locusts at the bottom 
of the slope. Here commences a long walk, which is the favorite 
morning ramble of guests. Deeply shaded, winding along the 
thickly wooded bank, with the refreshing sound of the tide-waves 
gently dashing against the rocky shores below, or expending them- 
selves on the beach of gravel, it curves along the bank for a great 
distance. Sometimes overhanging cliffs, crested with pines, frown 
darkly over it ; sometimes thick tufts of fern and mossy-carpeted 



A VISIT TO MONTGOMERY PLACE. 19*7 

rocks border it, wMle at various points, vistas or long reaches of the 
beautiful river scenery burst upon the eye. Half-way along this 
morning ramble, a rustic seat, placed on a bold little plateau, at the 
base of a large tree, eighty feet above the water, and fenced about 
with a rustic barrier, invites you to linger and gaze at the fascinat- 
ing river landscape here presented. It embraces the distant moun- 
tains, a sylvan foreground, and the broad river stretching away for 
miles, sprinkled -with white sails. The coup-d'ceil is heightened 
by its being seen through a dark framework of thick leaves and 
branches, which open here just sufficiently to show as much as the 
eye can enjoy or revel in, without change of position. 

A little farther on, we reach a flight of stony steps, leading up 
to the border of the lawn. At the top of these is a rustic seat with 
a thatched canopy, curiously built round the trunk of an aged tree. 

Passing these steps, the morning walk begins to descend more 
rapidly toward the river. At the distance of some hundred yards, 
we found ourselves on the river shore, and on a pretty jutting point 
of land stands a little rustic pavilion, from which a much lower 
and wider view of the landscape is again enjoyed. Here you find a 
boat ready for an excursion, if the spirit leads you to reverse the 
scenery, and behold the leafy banks from the water. 

THE WILDERNESS. 

Leaving the morning walk, we enter at once into " The Wilder- 
ness." This is a large and long wooded valley. It is broad, and 
much varied in surface, swelling into deep ravines, and spreading 
into wide hollows. In its lowest depths runs a large stream of water, 
that has, in portions, all the volume and swiftness of a mountain tor- 
rent. But the peculiarity of " The Wilderness," is in the depth and 
massiveness of its foliage. It is covered with the native growth of 
trees, thick, dark and shadowy, so that once plunged in its recesses, 
you can easily imagine yourself in the depths of an old forest, far 
away from the haunts of civilization. Here and there, i-ich thickets 
of thekalmia or native laurel clothe the surface of the ground, and 
form the richest underwood. 

But the wilderness is by no means savage in the aspect of its 
beauty ; on the contrary, here as elsewhere in this demesne, are evi- 



198 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

dences, in every improvement, of a fine appreciation of the natural 
charms of the locahty. Tlie whole of this richly wooded valley is 
threaded with walks, ingeniously and naturally conducted so as to 
penetrate to alltlie most interesting points ; while a great variety of 
rustic seats, formed beneath the trees, in deep secluded thickets, by 
the side of tbe swift rushing stream, or on some inviting eminence, 
enables one fully to enjoy them. 

There are a couple of miles of these walks, and from the depth 
and thickness of the Avood, and the varied surface of the gi'ouud, 
tbeir intricacy is such that only the family, or those very familiar 
with their course, are at all able to follow them all with any thing 
like positive certainty as to their destination. Though we have 
threaded them several seasons, yet our late visit to Montgomery 
Place found us giving ourselves up to the pleasing perplexity of 
choosing one at random, and ti'usting to a lucky guess to bring us 
out of the wood at the desired point. 

Not long after leaving the rustic j)CLviUon^* on descending by 
one of the paths that diverges to the left, we reach a charming little 
covered resting-place, in the form of a rustic porch. The roof is 
prettily thatched with thick green moss. Nestling under a dark 
canopy of evergreens in the shelter of a rocky fern-covered bank, 
an hour or two may be whiled away within it, almost unconscious 
of the passage of time. 

THE CATARACT. 

But the stranger who enters the depths of this dusky wood by 
this route, is not long inclined to remain here. His imagination is 
excited by the not very distant sound of waterfells. 

"Above, below, aerial murmurs swell, 
From hanging wood, bi'own heath and bushy dell ; 
A thousand gushing rills that shun the light, 
Stealing like music on the ear of night." 

He takes another path, passes by an airy-looking rustic bridge, and 
plunging for a moment into the thicket, emerges again in full Adew 

* See Downing's " Landscape Gardening," p. 48. 



A VISIT TO MONTGOMERY PLACK. 199 

of the fct cataract. Coming from the solemn depths of the wood, 
he is astonished at the noise and volume of the stream, which here 
rushes in wild foam and confusion over a rocky fall, forty feet in 
depth. Ascending a flight of steps made in the precipitous banks 
of the stream, we have another view, which is scarcely less spirited 
and picturesque. 

This waterfall, beautiful at all seasons, would alone be considered 
a sufficient attraction to give notoriety to a rural locality in most 
country neighborhoods. But as if Nature had intended to lavish 
her gifts here, she has, in the course of this valley, given two other 
cataracts. These are all striking enough to be worthy of the pencil 
of the artist, and they make this valley a feast of wonders to the 
lovers of the picturesque. 

There is a secret charm which binds us to these haunts of the 
water spirits. The spot is filled with the music of the falling water. 
Its echoes pervade the air, and beget a kind of dreamy revery. The 
memory of the world's toil gradually becomes fainter and fainter, 
under the spell of the soothing monotone ; until at last one begins 
to doubt the existence of towns and cities, full of busy fellow-beings, 
and to fancy the true hajipiness of life lies in a more simple exist- 
ence, where man, the dreamy silence of thick forests, the lulling 
tones of babbling brooks, and the whole heart of nature, make one 
sensation, full of quiet harmony and joy. 

THE LAKE. 

That shadowy path, that steals away so enticingly from the 
neighborhood of the cataract, leads to a spot of equal, though a dif- 
ferent kind of loveliness. Leaving the border of the stream, and 
following it past one or two distracting points, where other paths, 
starting out at various angles, seem provokingly to tempt one away 
from the neighborhood of the water, we suddenly behold, with a 
feeling of delight, the lake.* 

Nothing can have a more charming eftect than this natural 
mirror in the bosom of the valley. It is a fine expansion of the 
same stream, which farther down forms the large cataract. Here 

*See Downing's "Landscape Gardening," p. 49. 



200 LANUSCAPE GARDENING. 

it sleeps, as lazily and glassily as if quite incapable of aiiglit but re- 
flecting the beauty of the blue sky, and the snowy clouds, that float 
over it. On two sides, it is ovei'hung and deeply shaded by the 
bowery thickets of the surrounding wilderness ; on the third is a 
peninsula, fringed with the graceful willow, and rendered more at- 
tractive by a rustic te^nple ; while the fourth side is more sunn}- 
and open, and permits a peep at the distant azure mountain tops. 

This part of the grounds is seen at the most advantage, either 
towards evening, or in moonlight. Then the eftect of contrast in light 
and shadow is most striking, and the seclusion and beauty of the 
spot are more fully enjoyed than at any other hour. Then you will 
most certainly be tempted to leave the curious rustic seat, with its 
roof wrapped round with a rude entablature like Pluto's crown ; 
and you will take a seat in Psyche's boat, on whose prow is poised 
a giant butterfly, that looks so mysteriously down into the depths 
below as to impress you with a belief that it is the metempsychosis 
of the spirit of the place, guarding against all imhallowed violation 
of its purity and solitude. 

The peninsula, on the north of the lake, is carpeted with the dry 
leaves of the thick cedars that cover it, and form so umbrageous a 
resting-place that the sky over it seems absolutely dusky at noon- 
day. On its northern bank is a rude sofa, formed entirely of stone. 
Here you linger again, to wonder afresh at the novelty and beauty 
of the second cascade. The stream here emerges from a dark thick- 
et, falls about twenty feet, and then rushes away on the side of the 
peninsula opposite the lake. Although only separated by a short 
walk and the mass of cedars on the promontory, from the lake itself, 
yet one cannot be seen from the other ; and the lake, so full of the 
very spirit of repose, is a perfect opposite to this foaming, noisy little 
waterfall. 

Farther up the stream is another cascade, but leaving that for 
the present, let us now select a path leading, as near as we can 
judge, in the direction of the open pleasure-grounds near the house. 
Winding along the sides of the valley, and stretching for a good 
distance across its broadest part, all the while so deeply immersed, 
h<3wever, in its umbrageous shelter, as scarcely to see the sun, or in- 



A VISIT TO MONTGOMERY PLACE. 201 

deed to foel very certain of our whereabouts, we emerge in the neigh- 
borhood of the Conservatory.* 

This is a large, isolated, glazed structure, designed by Mr. Cath- 
erwood, to add to the scenic effect of the pleasure-grounds. On its 
northern side are, in summer, arranged the more delicate green- 
house plants ; and in front are groups of large oranges, lemons, 
citrons, Cape jasmines, eugenias, etc., in tubs — plants remarkable 
for their size and beauty. Passing under neat and tasteful archways 
of wirework, covered with rare climbers, we enter what is properly 

THE flower-garden. 

How different a scene from the deep sequestered shadows of the 
Wilderness ! Here all is gay and smiling. Bright j^arterres of 
brilliant flowers bask in the full daylight, and rich masses of color 
seem to revel in the sunshine. The walks are fancifully laid out, so 
as to form a tasteful whole ; the beds are surrounded by low edgings 
of turf or box, and the whole looks like some rich oriental pattern or 
carpet of embroidery. In the centre of the garden stands a large 
vase of the Warwick pattern ; othei's occupy the centres of parterres 
in the midst of its two main divisions, and at either end is a fanciful 
light summer-house, or pavilion, of Moresque character. The whole 
garden is surrounded and shut out from the lawn, by a belt of 
shrubbery, and above and behind this, rises, like a noble framework, 
the background of trees of the lawn and the Wilderness. If there 
is any prettier flower-garden scene than this ensemhle in the country, 
we have not yet had the good fortune to behold it. 

It must be an industrious sight-seer who could accomplish more 
than we have here indicated of the beauties of this residence, in a 
day. Indeed there is enough of exercise for the body, and enjoy- 
ment for the senses in it, for a week. But another morning may be 
most agreeably passed in a portion of the estate quite apart from 
that which has met the eye from any point yet examined. This is 

THE DRIVE. 

On the southern boundary is an oak wood of about fifty acres. 
* See Downing's " Landscape Gardening," p. 453. 



202 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 

It is totally dift'erent in character fi'om the Wilderness on the north, 
and is a nearly level or slightly undulating surface, well covered with 
fine Oak, Chestnut, and other timber trees. Through it is laid out 
the Drive ; a sylvan route as agreeable for exercise in the carriage, 
or on horseback, as the " Wilderness," or the " Morning Walk," is 
for a ramble on foot. It adds no small additional chai'm to a coun- 
try place in the eyes of many persons, this secluded and perfectly 
private drive, entirely within its own limits. 

Though Montgomery Place itself is old, yet a spirit ever new 
directs the improvements earned on within it. Among those more 
worthy of note, we gladly mention an arboretum, just commenced 
on a fine site in the pleasure-grounds, set apart and thoroughly pre- 
pared for the purpose. Here a scientific arrangement of all the most 
beautiful hardy trees and shrubs, will interest the student, who looks 
upon the vegetable kingdom with a more curious eye than the ordi- 
nary observer. 

The whole extent of the private roads and walks, within the pre- 
cincts of Montgomery Place, is between five and six miles. The 
remarkably natural beauty which it embraces, has been elicited and 
heightened every where, in a tasteful and judicious manner. There 
are numberless lessons here for the landscape gardener ; there are 
an hundred points that will delight the artist ; there are meditative 
walks and a thousand suggestive aspects of nature for the poet ; and 
the man of the world, engaged in a feverish pursuit of its gold and 
its glitter, may here taste something of the beauty and refinement 
of rural life in its highest aspect, and be able afterwards understand- 
ingly to wish that 

"One fair asylum from the world he knew, 
One chosen seat, that cliarras the various view. 
Who boasts of more, (believe the serious strain,) 
Sighs for a home, and sighs, alas ! in vain. 
Thro' each he roves, the tenant of a day, 
And with the swallow wings the year away." 

Rogers. 



EUPiAL ARCHITECTURE. 



RUEAL ARCHITECTURE. 



I. 



A FEW WORDS ON RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

July, 1850. 

NO one pretends that we have, as yet, either a national architec- 
ture or national music in America ; unless our Yankee clap- 
board house be taken as a specimen of the first, and " Old Susannah " 
of the second fine art. But there is, on the other hand, perhaps, 
no country where there is more building or more "musicianing," 
such as they are, at the present moment. And as a perfect taste in 
arts is no more to be expected in a young nation, mainly occupied 
with the practical wants of life, than a knowledge of geometry is 
in an infant school, we are content with the large promise that we 
find in the present, and confidently look forward for fulfilment to 
the future. 

In almost every other country, a few landlords own the land, 
which a great many tenants live upon and cultivate. Hence the 
general interest in building is confined to a comparatively small class, 
improvements are made in a solid and substantial way, and but little 
change takes place from one generation to another in the style of 
the dwelling and the manner of living. 

But in this country we are, comparatively, all landlords. In the 
country, especially, a large part of the rural population own the land 
they cultivate, and build their own houses. Hence it is a matter of 



206 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

no little moment to them, to avail tliemselves of every possible im- 
provement in the manner of constructing their dwellings, so as to 
secure the largest amount of comfort, convenience, and beauty, for 
the moderate sum which an American landholder has to spend. 
While the rural proprietors of the other continent are often content 
to live in the same houses, and with the same inconveniences as 
their forefathers, no one in our time and country, who has any of 
the national spirit of progress in him, is satisfied unless, in building 
a new house, he has some of the "modern improvements" in it. 

Tliis is a good sign of the times ; and when we see it coupled 
with another, viz., the great desire to make the dwelling agreeable 
and ornamental as well as comfortable, we think there is abundant 
reason to hope, so far as the country is concerned, that something 
like a national taste will come in due time. 

Wliat the popular taste in building seems to us to require, just 
now, is not so much impulse as right direction. There are number- 
less persons who have determined, in building their new home in 
the country, that they " will have something pretty ;" but precisely 
what character it shall have, and whether there is any character, 
beyond that of a " pretty cottage " or a " splendid house," is not 
perhaps very clear to their minds. 

We do not make this statement to find fault with the condition 
of things ; far from it. We see too much good in the newly awak- 
ened taste for the Beautiful, to criticize severely its want of intelli- 
gence as to the exact course it should take to achieve its object — or 
perhaps its want of definiteness as to what that object is — ^beyond 
providing an agreeable home. But we allude to it to show that, 
with a little direction, the popular taste how awakened in this par- 
ticular department, may develop itself in such a manner as to pro- 
duce the most satisfactory and beautiful results. 

Fifteen years ago there was but one idea relating to a house in 
the country. It must be a Grecian temple. Wliether twenty feet 
or two hundred feet front, it must have its columns and portico. 
There might be comfortable rooms behind them or not ; that was a 
matter which the severe taste of the classical builder could not stoop 
to consider. The roof might be so flat that there was no space 
for comfortable servants' bedrooms, or the attic so hot that the second 



A FEW WORDS ON RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 207 

story was uninhabitable in a midsummers day. But of what con- 
sequence was that, if the portico were copied from tlie Temple of 
Theseus, or the columns were miniature imitations in wood of those 
of Jupiter Olympus ? 

We have made a great step onward in thai short fifteen years. 
There is, to be sure, a fashion now in building bouses in the coun- 
try — almost as prevalent and despotic as its pseudo-classical prede- 
cessor, but it is a far more rational and sensible one, and thougli 
likely to produce the same unsatisfiictory eftect of all otber fashions 
— that is, to substitute sameness and monotony for tasteful individu- 
ality — yet we gladly accept it as the next step onward. 

We allude, of course, to the Gothic or English cottage, with 
steep roofs and high gables — ^just now the ambition of almost every 
person building in the country. There are, indeed, few things so 
beautiful as a cottage of this kind, well designed and tastefully 
placed. There is nothing, all the world over, so truly rural and so 
unmistakably country-like as this very cottage, which, has been de- 
veloped in so much perfection in the rural lanes and amidst the pic- 
turesque lights and shadows of an English landscajie. And for this 
reason, because it is essentially rural and country-like, we gladly 
welcome its general naturalization (with the needful variation of the 
veranda, &c., demanded by our climate), as the type of most of our 
country dwellings. 

But it is time to enter a protest against the absolute and indis- 
criminate employment of the Gothic cottage in evenj site and situ- 
ation in the countiy — whether appropriate or inappropriate — 
whether suited to the grounds or the life of those who are to in- 
habit it, or the contrary. 

We have endeavored, in our work on " Country-Houses," just 
issued from the press, to show that rural architecture has more sig- 
nificance and a deeper meaning than merely to afford a " pretty 
cottage," or a " handsome house," for him who can afford to pay for 
it. We believe not only that a house may have an absolute beauty 
of its own, growing out of its architecture, but that it may have a 
relative beauty no less interesting, which arises from its expressing 
the life and occupation of those who build or inhabit it. In other 
words, we think the home of every family, possessed of character 



208 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

may be made to express that character, and will be most beautiful 
(supposing the character good), when in addition to architectural 
beauty it unites this significance or individuality. 

We have not the space to go into detail on this subject here ; 
and to do so would only be repeating what we have already said in 
the work in question. But the most casual reader will understand 
from uur suggestion, that if a man's house can be made to express 
the best traits of his character, it is undeniable that a large source 
of beauty and interest is always lost by those who copy each other's 
homes without reflection, even though they may be copying the 
most faultless cottage orndc. 

We would have the cottage, the farm-house, and the larger 
country-house, all marked by a somewhat distinctive character of 
their own, so far as relates to making them complete and individual 
of their kind ; and believing as we do, that the beauty and force 
of every true man's life or occupation depend largely on his pursu- 
ing it frankly, honestly, and openly, with all the individuality of his 
character, we would have his house and _home help to give signifi- 
cance to, and dignify that daily life and occui^ation, by harmonizing 
with them. For this reason, we think the farmer errs when he 
copies the filagree work of the retired citizen's cottage, instead of 
showing that rustic strength and solidity in his house which are its 
true elements of interest and beauty. For this reason, we think he 
who builds a simple and modest cottage in the country, fails in at- 
taining that which he aims at by copying, as nearly as his means 
will permit, the parlors, folding doors, and showy furniture of the 
newest house he has seen in town. 

We will not do more at present than throw out these sugges- 
tions, in the hope that those about to buUd in the country will reflect 
that an entirely satisfactory house is one in which there are not only 
pretty forms and details, but one which has some meaning in its 
beauty, considered in relation to their own position, character, and 
daily lives. 



n. 



MORAL INFLUENCE OF GOOD HOUSES. 

• Februaiy, 1848. 

AVERY little observation will convince any one that, in the 
United States, a new era, in Domestic Architecture^ is already 
commenced. A few years ago, and all our houses, with rare excep- 
tions, were built upon the most meagre plan. A shelter from the 
inclemencies of the weather ; space enough in Avhich to eat, drink 
and sleep; perhaps some" excellence of mechanical workmanship 
in the details ; these were the characteristic features of the great 
mass of our dwelling-houses — and especially country houses — a few 
years ago. 

A dwelling-house, for a civilized man, built with no higher 
aspirations than these, we look upon with the same feelings that 
inspire us when we behold the Indian, who guards himself against 
heat and cold by that primitive, and, as he considers it, sufficient 
costume — a blanket. An unmeaning pile of wood, or stone, serves 
as a shelter to the bodily frame of man ; it does the same for the 
brute animals that serve him; the blanket covers the skin of the 
savage from the harshness of the elements, as the thick shaggy coat 
protects the beasts he hunts in the forest. But these are only mani- 
festations of the grosser wants of life ; and the mind of the civilized 
and cultivated man as naturally manifests itself in fitting, appro- 
priate, and beautiful forms of habitation and costume, as it does in 
fine and lofty written thought and uttered speech. 

Hence, as society advances beyond that condition, in which the 
primary wants of human nature are satisfied, we naturally find that 
14 



210 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

literature and the arts flouiish. Along with great orators and in- 
spired poets, come fine architecture, and tasteful grounds and gardens. 

Let us congi-atulate ourselves that the new era is fairly com- 
menced in the United States. We by no means wish to be imder- 
.stood, that all our citizens have fairly passed the barrier that separates 
utter indifference, or peiirile fancy, from good taste. There are, and 
will be, for a long time, a large proportion of houses built without 
any definite principles of construction, except those of the most 
downright necessity. But, on the other hand, we are glad to per- 
ceive a very considerable sprinkhng over the whole country — fi-om 
the Mississippi to the Kennebec — of houses built in such a manner, 
as to prove at first glance, that the ideal of their owners has risen 
.above the platform of mer^ animal wants : that they perceive the 
intellectual superiority of a beautiful design over a meaningless and 
uncouth form ; and that a house is to them no longer a comfortable 
shelter merely, but an expression of the intelligent life of man, in a 
state of society where the soul, the intellect, and the heart, are all 
awake, and all educated. 

There are, perhaps, few persons who have examined fully the 
effects of a general diffusion of good taste, of well being, and a love 
of order and proportion, upon the community at large. There are, 
no doubt, some who look upon fine houses as fostering the pride of 
the few, and the envy and discontent of the many ; and — in some 
transatlantic countries, where wealth and its avenues are closed to all 
but a few — not without reason. But, in this country, where integ- 
rity and industry are almost always rewarded by more than the 
means of subsistence, we have firm faith in the moral effects of the 
fine arts. We believe in the bettering influence of beautiful cottages 
and country houses — in the improvement of human nature necessa- 
rily resulting to all classes, fi'om the possession of lovely gardens 
and fruitful orchards. 

We do not know how we can present any argument of this 
matter, if it requires one, so good as one of that long-ago distin- 
guished man — Dr. D wight. He is describing, in his Travels in 
America, the influence of good architecture, as evinced in its eftects 
on the manners and character of the inhabitants in a town in New 
England : 



MORAL INFLUENCE OF GOOD HOUSES. 211 

" There is a kind of symmetry in tlie thouglits, feelings, and efforts 
of tlie human mind. Its taste, intelligence, affections, and conduct, 
are so intimately related, that no preconcertion can prevent them 
from being mutually causes and effects. The firet thing powerfully 
operated upon, and, in its turn, proportionately operative, is the taste. 
The perception of beauty and deformity, of refinement and gross- 
ness, of decency and vulgarity, of propriety and indecorum, is the 
firet thing which influences man to attempt an escape from a grov- 
elling, brutish character ; a character in which morality/, is chilled, 
or absolutely frozen. In most persons, this perception is awakened 
by what may be called the exterior of society, particularly by the 
mode of building. Uncouth, mean, ragged, dirty houses, constitut- 
ing the body of any town, will regulai+y be accompanied by coarse, 
grovelling manners. The dress, the furniture, the mode of living, 
and the manners, will all correspond with the appearance of the 
buildings, and will universally be, in every such case, of a vulgar 
and debased nature. On the inhabitants of such a town, it will be 
difficult, if not impossible, to work a conviction that intelligence is 
either necessary or useful. Generally, they will regard both learn- 
ing and science only with contempt. Of morals, except in the 
coarsest form, and that which has the least influence on the heart, 
they will scarcely have any apprehensions. The rights enforced by 
municipal law, they may be compelled to respect, and the corres- 
ponding duties they may be necessitated to perform ; but the rights 
and obligations which lie beyond the reach of magistracy, in which 
the chief duties of morality are found, and from which the chief 
enjoyments of society spring, will scarcely gain even their passing- 
notice. They may pay their debts, but they will neglect almost 
every thing of value in the education of their children. 

" The very fact, that men see good houses built around them, 
will, more than almost any thing else, awaken in them a sense of 
superiority in those by whom such houses are inhabited. The same 
sense is derived, in the same manner, from handsome dress, furni- 
ture, and equipage. The sense of beauty is necessarily accompa- 
nied by a perception of the superiority which it possesses over de- 
formity ; and is instinctively felt to confer this superiority on those 
who can call it their own, over those who cannot. 



212 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

" This, I apprehend, is the manner in which coarse society is 
first started towards improvement ; for no objects, but those which 
are sensible, can make any considerable impression on coarse 
minds." 

The first motive which leads men to build good houses is, no 
doubt, that of increasing largely their own comfort and happiness. 
But it is easy to see that, in this country, where so many are able 
to achieve a home for themselves, he who gives to the public a 
more beautiful and tasteful model of a habitation than his neigh- 
bors, is a benefactor to the cause of morality, good order, and the 
improvement of society where he lives. To place before men rea- 
sonable objects of ambition, and to dignify and exalt their aims, 
cannot but be laudable in the sight of all. And in a country where 
it is confessedly neither for the benefit of the community at large, 
nor that of the succeeding generation, to amass and transmit great 
fortunes, we would encourage a taste for beautiful and appropriate 
architecture, as a means of promoting public virtue and the general 
good. 

We have said beautiful and appropriate architecture — not with- 
out desiring that all our readers should feel the value of this latter 
qualification as fully as we do. Among the many strivings after 
architectural beauty, which we see daily made by our countrymen, 
there are, of course, some foilures, and only now and then -examples 
of perfect success. But the rock on which all novices split — and 
especially all men who have thought little of the subject, and who are 
satisfied with a feeble imitation of some great example from other 
countries — this dangerous rock is want of fitness, or proiyriety. 
Almost the first principle, certainly the grand principle, which an 
apostle of architectural progress ought to preach in America, is, 
" keep in mind protriety." Do not build your houses like tem- 
ples, churches, or cathedrals. Let them be, characteristically, dwell- 
ing-houses. And more than this ; always let their individuality of 
purpose be faii'ly avowed ; let the cottage be a cottage — the farm- 
house a farm-house — the villa a villa, and the mansion a mansion. 
Do not attempt to build a dwelling upon your farm after the fashion 
of the town-house of your friend, the city merchant ; do not at^ 
tempt to give the modest little cottage the ambitious air of tlie 



MORAL INFLUENCE OF GOOD HOUSES. 213 

ornate villa. Be assured that there is, if you will search for it, a 
peculiar beauty that belongs to each of these classes of dwellings 
that heightens and adorns it almost magically ; while, if it borrows 
the ornaments of the other, it is only debased and falsified in char- 
acter and expression. The most expensive and elaborate structure, 
overlaid with costly ornaments, will fail to give a ray of pleasure to 
the mind of real taste, if it is not appropriate to the purpose in 
view, or the means or position of its occupant ; while the simple 
farm-house, rustically and tastefully adorned, and ministering beauty 
to hearts that answer to the spirit of the beautiful, will weave a 
spell in the memory not easily forgotten. 



III. 



A FEW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING. 

June, 1851. 

THE " Genius of Architecture," said Thomas Jefferson, some fifty 
years ago, " has shed its malediction upon America." Jefier- 
son, though the boldest of democrats, had a secret respect and ad- 
miration for thb magnificent results of aristocratic institutions in the 
arts, and had so refined his taste in France, as to be shocked, past 
endurance, on his return home, with the raw and crude attempts at 
building in the republic. 

No one, however, can accuse the Americans with apathy or want 
of interest in architecture, at the present moment. Within^ten yeare 
past, the attention of great numbers has been turned to the improve- 
ment and embellishment of public and private edifices ; many foreign 
architects have settled in the Union ; numerous works — especially 
upon domestic architecture — have been issued from the press, and 
the whole community, in town and country, seem at the present 
moment to be aflBiicted with the building mania. The upper part 
of New-York, especially, has the air of some city of fine houses in 
all styles, rising from the earth as if by enchantment, while in the 
suburbs of Boston, rural cottages are springing up on all sides, as if 
the "Genius of Architecture" had sown, broadcast, the seeds of 
orn6e cottages, and was in a fair way of having a fine harvest in that 
quarter. 

There are many persons who are as discontented with this new hot- 
bed growth of architectural beauty, as Jefierson was A^th the earlier 
and ranker growth of deformity in his day. Some denounce " fancy 



A FEW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING. 215 

houses," — as they call every thing but a solid square block — alto- 
gether. Others have become weary of " Gothic" (without, perhaps, 
ever ha^ang really seen one good specimen of the style), and suggest 
whether there be not something barbarous in a lancet window to a 
modern parlor ; while the larger number go on building vigorously 
in the newest style they can find, determined to have something, if 
not better and more substantial than their neighbors, at least more 
extraordinary and uncommon. 

There is still another class of our countrymen who put on a 
hypercritical air, and sit in judgment on the progress and develop- 
ment of the building taste in this country. They disclaim eveiy 
thing foreign. They will have no Gothic mansions, Italian villas, or 
Swiss cottages. Nothing will go down with them but an entirely 
new " order," as they call it, and they berate all architectural wiiters 
(we have come in for our share) for presenting certain more or less 
meritorious modifications of such foreign styles. What they de- 
mand, with their brows lowered and their hands clenched, is an 
" American style of architecture !" As if an architecture sprung up 
like the after-growth in our forests, the natural and immediate con- 
sequence of clearing the soil. As if a people not even indigenous to 
the countiy, but wholly European colonists, or their descendants, a 
people who have neither a new language nor religion, who wear the 
fashions of Paris, and who, in their highest education, hang upon the 
skirts of Greece and Rome, were likely to invent (as if it were a new 
plough) an original and altogether novel and satisfactory style of 
architecture. 

A little learning, we have been rightly told, is one of the articles 
to be labelled "dangerous." Our hypercritical friends prove the 
truth of the saying, by expecting what never did, and never will 
happen. An original style in architecture or any other of the arts, 
has never yet been invented or composed outright ; but all have been 
modifications of previously existing modes of building. Late discov- 
erers have proved that Grecian Architecture was only perfected in 
Greece — the models of their temples were found in older Egypt.* 

* According to the last conclusions of the savans, Solomon's Temple was 
a pure model of Greek Architecture. 



216 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

The Romans composed their finest structures out of the very ruins 
of public edifices brought from Greece, and the round arch had its 
rise from working with these fragments instead of masses of stone. 
The Gothic arch, the origin of which has been claimed as an inven- 
tion of comparatively modern art, Mr. Ruskin has proved to be of 
purely Arabic origin, in use in Asia long before Gothic architecture 
was known, and gradually introduced into Europe by architects from 
the East. And whoever studies Oriental art, will see the elements 
of Arabic architecture, the groundwork of the style, abounding in 
the I'uins of Indian temples of the oldest date known on the globe. 

It is thus, by a little research, that we find there has never been 
such a novelty as the invention of a positively new style in building. 
What are now known as the Grecian, Gothic, Roman and other 
styles, are only those local, modifications of the styles of the older 
countries, from which the newer colony borrowed them, as the cli- 
mate, habits of the people, and genius of the architects, acting upon 
each other through a long series of years, gradually developed into 
such styles. It is, therefore, as absurd for the critics to ask for the 
American style of architecture, as it was for the English friends of a 
Yankee of our acquaintance to request him (after they were on quite 
familiar terms) to do them the favor to put on his savage dress and 
talk a little American ! This country is, indeed, too distinct in its 
institutions, and too vast in its territorial and social destinies, not to 
shape out for itself a great national type in character, manners and 
art ; but the development of the finer aiid more intellectual traits of 
character are slower in a nation than they are in a man, and only 
time can develope them healthily in either case. 

In the mean time, we ai-e in the midst of what may be called 
the experimental stage of architectural taste. With the passion for 
novelty, and the feeling of independence that belong to this country, 
our people seem determined to try every thing. A propiietor on 
the lower part of the Hudson, is building a stone castle, with all the 
towers clustered together, after the fashion of the old robber strong- 
holds on the Rhine. We trust he has no intention of levying toll 
on the raili-oad that runs sij trains a day under his frowning battle- 
ments, or exacting booty from the river craft of all sizes forever 
floating by. A noted New-Yorker has erected a villa near Bridge- 



A FEW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING. 217 

port, which looks like the minareted and domed residence of a Per- 
sian Shah — though its orientalism is rather put out of countenance 
by the piim and puritanical dwellings of the plain citizens within 
rifle shot of it. A citizen of fortune dies, and leaves a large sum to 
erect a " large plain building" for a school to educate orphan boys 
— Avhich the building committee consider to mean a superb marble 
temple, like that of Jupiter Olympus ; a foreigner liberally bequeaths 
his fortune to the foundation of an institution " for the diftusion of 
knowledge among men" — and the regents erect a college in the 
style of a Norman monastery — Avith a relish of the dark ages in it, 
the better to contrast with its avowed purpose of diffusing light. 
On all sides, in our large towns, we have churches built after Gothic 
models, and though highly fitting and beautiful as churches, i. e., 
edifices for purely devotional purposes — are quite useless as places 
to hear sermons in, because the preacher's voice is inaudible in at 
least one-half of the church. And every where in the older parts of 
the country, private fortunes are rapidly crystallizing into mansions, 
villas, country-houses and cottages, in all known styles supposed to 
be in any way suitable to the purposes of civilized habitations. 

Without in the least desiring to apologize for the frequent viola- 
tions of taste witnessed in all this fermentation of the popular feeling 
in architecture, we do not hesitate 'to say that we rejoice in it. It 
is a fermentation that shows clearly there is no apathj^ in the public 
mind, and we feel as much confidence as the vintner who walks 
through the wine cellar in full activity, that the froth of foreign affec- 
tations will work off, and the impurities of vulgar taste settle down, 
leaving us the pure spirit of a better national taste at last. Rome 
was not built in a day, and whoever would see a national architec- 
ture, must be patient till it has time to rise out of the old materials, 
under the influences of a new climate, our novel institutions and 
modified habits. 

In domestic architecture, the difficulties that lie in the way of 
achieving a pure and correct taste, are, perhaps, greater than in civil 
or ecclesiastical edifices. There are so many private fancies, and 
personal vanities, which seek to manifest themselves in the house of 
the ambitious private citizen, and which are defended under the 
shield of that miserable falsehood, " there is no disputing about 



218 KURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

tasks." (If the proverb read whims, it would be gospel truth.) 
Hence we see numberless persons who set about building their own 
house without the aid of an architect, who would not think of being 
their own lawyer, though one profession demands as much study and 
caj)acity as the other ; and it is not to this we object, for we hold 
that a man may often build his own house and plead his OAvn 
rights to justice satisfactorily — but it must be done in both instances, 
in the simplest and most straightforward manner. K he attempts 
to go into the discussion of Blackstone on the one hand, or the mys- 
teries of Vitruvius and Pugin on the other, he is sure to get speedily 
swamped, and commit all sorts of follies and extravagancies quite 
out of keeping with his natural character. 

The two greatest trials to the architect of taste, who desires to 
see his country and age making a respectable figure in this branch 
of the arts, are to be found in that class of travelled smatterers in 
virtu, who have picked up here and there, in the tour from Liver- 
pool to Rome, certain ill-assorted notions of art, which they wish 
combined in one subhme whole, in the shape of their own domicil ; 
and that larger class, who ambitiously imitate in a small cottage, all 
that belongs to palaces, castles and buildings of princely dimensions. 

The first class is confined to no country. Examples are to be 
found every where, and we do not know of a better hit at the folly 
of these cognoscenti, than in the following relation of experiences by 
one of the cleverest of English architectural critics : 

" The architect is requested, perhaps, by a man of great wealth, 
nay, of established taste in some points, to make a design for a villa 
in a lovely situation. The future proprietor carries him up staii-s to 
his study, to give him what he calls his ' ideas and materials,' and, 
in all probability, begins somewhat thus : ' This, sir, is a slight note ; 
I made it on the spot ; approach to Villa Reale, near Puzzuoli. 
Dancing nymphs, you perceive ; cypresses, shell fountain. I think 
I should like something like this for the approach ; classical you 
perceive, sir ; elegant, graceful. Then, sir, this is a sketch by an 
American friend of mine ; Whe-whaw-Kantamaraw's wigwam, king 
of the Cannibal Islands ; I think he said, sir. Log, you ob- 
serve ; scalps, and boa constrictor skins ; curious. Something like 
this, sir, would look neat, I think, for the front door ; don't you ? 



A FEW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING. 219 

Then the lower windows, I'm not quite decided upon ; but what 
would you say to Egyptian, sir ? I think I should like my windows 
Egj^ptian, with hieroglyphics, sir ; storks and coffins, and appropri- 
ate mouldings above ; I brought some from Fountain's Abbey the 
other daJ^ Look here, sir ; angel's heads putting their tongues out, 
rolled up in cabbage leaves, with a dragon on each side riding on a 
broomstick, and the devil looking out from the mouth of an alliga- 
tor, sir.* Odd, I think ; interesting. Then the corners may be 
tm-ned by octagonal towers, like the centre one in Kenilworth Cas- 
tle ; with Gothic doors, portcullis, and all, quite perfect ; Avith cross 
slits for arrows, battlements for musketry, machiolations for boiling 
lead, and a room at the top for drying plums ; and the conservatory 
at the bottom, sir, with Virginia creepers up the towers ; door sup- 
ported by sphinxes, holding scrapers in their fore paws, and having 
their tails prolonged into warm-water pipes, to keep the plants safe 
in "Ranter, &c.' " 

We have seen buildings in England, where such Bedlam sugges- 
tions of taste have not only been made, but accepted either wholly 
or partly by the architect, and where the result was, of course, both 
ludicrous and absurd. There is less dictation to architects in this 
country on one hand, and more independence of any class on the 
other, to bring such examples of architectural salmagundies into ex- 
istence — though there are a few in the profession weak enough to 
prostitute their talents to any whim or caprice of the employer. 

But by far the greater danger at the present moment lies in the 
inordinate ambition of the builders of ornamental cottages. Not 
contented with the simple and befitting decoration of the modest 
veranda, the bracketed roof, the latticed window, and the lovely ac- 
cessories of vines and flowering shrubs, the builder of the cottage orn^e 
in too many cases, attempts to ingraft upon his simple story of a 
habitation, all the tropes and figures of architectural rhetoric which 
belong to the elaborate oratory of a palace or a temple. 

We have made a point of enforcing the superior charm of sim- 
plicity — and the realness of the beauty which grows out of it, in 
I 

* This grotesque device is actually carved ou one of the groins of Eoslin 
Castle, Scotland. 



220 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

our late work ou Country Houses. We even went so far as to give 
a few examples of farm-houses studiously made simple and rural in 
cliaracter, though not without a certain beauty of expression befit- 
ting their locality, and the uses to which they were destined. But, 
judging from some criticisms on these farm-houses in one of the 
western papers, we believe it will not be an easy task to convince 
the future proprietors of farm-houses and rural cottages, that truth- 
ful simplicity is better than borrowed decorations, in their country 
homes. Our critic wonders why farmers should not be allowed to 
live in as handsome houses (confounding mere decorations with 
beauty) as any other class of our citizens, if they can aftbixl it — and 
claims for them the use of the most ornamental architecture in their 
farm-houses. We have only to answer to this, that the simplest ex- 
pression of beauty which grows out of a man's life, ranks higher 
for him than the most elaborate one borrowed from another's life 
or circumstances. We will add, by way of illustration, that there 
is no moral or political objection, that we know, of a farmer's wear- 
ing a general's uniform in his corn-fields, if he likes it better than 
plain clothes ; but to our mind, his costume — undoubtedly hand- 
somer in the right place — would be both absurd and ugly, behind 
the harrow. 

We are glad to find, however, that our feeling of the folly of 
this exaggerated pretension in cottage architecture, is gradually 
finding its expression in other channels of the public press — a sure 
sign that it will eventually take hold of public opinion. The fol- 
lowing satire on the taste of the day in this overloaded style of 
" carpenter's gothic," from the pen of one of the wittiest and clever- 
est of American poets, has lately appeared (as part of a longer satire 
on another subject), in one of our popular magazines. But it is too 
good to be lost sight of by our readers, and we recommend it to a 
second perusal. A thought or two upon its moral, as applied to 
the taste of the country, will help us on most essentially iu this, our 
experimental age of architecture. 



A FEW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDINQ. 221 

THE KUEAL COT OF ME. KIJOTT. 

BY LOWBDL. 

My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott, 

From business siuig witlidrawn, 
Was much contented with a lot 
Which would contain a Tudor cot 
'Twixt twelve feet squai*e of garden-plot 

And twelve feet more of lawn. 

He had laid business on the shelf 

To give his taste expansion, 
And, since no man, retired with pelf, 

The building mania can shun, 
Knott being middle-aged himself. 
Resolved to build (unhappy elf!) 

A mediaeval mansion. 

He called an architect in counsel ; 

"I want," said he, "a — you know what, 

(You are a builder, I am Knott,) 

A thing complete from chimney-pot 
Down to the very groundsel ; 

Here's a half acre of good land ; 

Just have it nicely mapped and planned, 
And make your workmen drive on ; 

Meadow there is, and upland too, 

And I should like a water-view, 
D' you think you could contrive one ? 

(Perhaps the pump and trough would do. 

If painted a judicious blue ?) 

The woodland I've attended to ;" 

(He meant three pines stuck up askew. 
Two dead ones and a live one.) 

" A pocket-full of rocks 'twould take 
To build a house of freestone, 

But then it is not hard to make 
What now-a-days is </<e stone ; 

The cunning painter in a trice 

Your house's outside petrifies, 

And people think it very gneiss 
Without inquiring deeper ; 



222 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

Mj money never shall be thrown 
Away on such a deal of stone, 
When stone of deal is cheaper." 

And so the greenest of antiques 

Was reared for Knott to dwell in ; 
The architect worked hard for weeks 

In venting all his private peaks 

Upon the roof, whose crop of leaks 
Had satisfied Fluellen. 
Whatever anybody had 
Out of the common, good or bad, 

Knott had it all worked well in, 
A donjon keep where clothes might dry, 
A porter's lodge that was a sty, 
A campanile slim and high, 

Too small to hang a bell in ; 
All up and down and here and there, 
With Lord-knows-what of round and square 
Stuck on at random every where ; 
It was a house to make one stare, 

All corners and all gables ; 
Like dogs let loose upon a bear. 
Ten emulous styles staboyed with care, 
The whole among them seemed to bear 
And all the oddities to spare. 

Were set upon the stables. 

Knott was delighted with a pile 

Approved by fashion's leaders , 
(Only he made the builder smile, 
By asking, every little while. 
Why that was called the Twodoor style, 

Wliich certainly had three doors ?) 
Yet better for this luckless man 
If he had put a downright ban 

Upon the thing in limine ; 
For, though to quit affairs his plan, 
Ere many days, poor Knott began 
Perforce accepting draughts that ran 

All ways — except up chimney : 
The house, though painted stone to mock. 
With nice white lines round every block, 

Some trepidation stood in. 



A FE-W WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IX BUILDING. 223 

Wheu tempests (with petrific shock, 
So to speak) made it really rock, 

Tliough not a whit less wooden ; 
And painted stone, howe'er well done, 
Will not take in the prodigal sun 
Whose beams are never quite at one 

With our terrestrial lumber ; 
So the wood shrank around the knots, 
And gaped in disconcerting spots. 
And there were lots of dots and rots 

And crannies without number, 
Wliere though, as you may well presume, 
The wind, like water through a flume. 

Came rushing in ecstatic. 
Leaving in all three floors, no room 

That was not a rheumatic ; 
And what, with points and squares and rounds, 

Grown shaky on their poises. 
The house at night was full of pounds. 
Thumps, bumps, creaks, scratchings, raps, — till — "zounds," 
Cried Knott, " this goes beyond all bounds, 
I do not deal in tongues and sounds, 
Nor have I let my house and grounds, 

To a family of Noyeses." 



IV. 



COCKNEYISM IN THE COUNTRY. 

September, 1849. 
"ITyilEN a farmer, who visits the metropohs once a year, stares 
V T into the shop windows in Broadway, and stops now and then 
with an indefinite curiosity at the corners of the streets, the citizens 
smile, with the satisfaction of superior knowledge, at the awkward 
airs of the countryman in town. 

But how shall we describe the conduct of the true cockneys in 
the country ? How shall we find words to express our horror and 
pity at the cockneyisms with which they deform the landscape? 
How shall we paint, without the aid of Hogarth and Cruikshauks, 
the ridiculous insults which they often try to put upon nature and 
truth in their cottages and country-seats ? 

The countryman in town is at least modest. He has, perhaps, 
a mysterious though mistaken respect for men who live in such 
prodigiously fine houses, who drive in coaches with liveried servants, 
and pay thousands for the transfer of little scraps of paper, which 
they call stocks. 

But the true cit is brazen and impertinent in the country. 
Conscious that his clothes are designed, his hat fabricated, his til- 
bury built, by the only artists of their several professions on this 
side of the Atlantic, he pities and despises all who do not bear the 
outward stamp of the same coinage. He comes in the country to 
rusticate, (that is, to recruit his purse and his digestion,) very much 
as he turns his horse out to grass ; as a means of gaining strength 
sufficient to go back again to the only arena in which it is worth 



COCKNEYISM IN THE COUNTKY. 225 

while to exhibit his powers. He wonders how people cau live in 
the country from choice, and asks a solemn question, now and then, 
about passing the winter there, as he would about a passage 
through Behring's Straits, or a pic-nic on the borders of the Dead 
Sea. 

But this is all very harmless. On their own ground, countr}' 
folks have the advantage of the cockneys. The scale is turned 
then ; and knowing perfectly well how to mow, cradle, build stone 
walls and drive oxen, — undeniably useful and substantial, kinds of 
knowledge, — they are scarcely less amused at the fine airs and 
di'oll ignorances of the cockney in the country, who does not know 
a bullrush from a butternut, than the citizens are in town at their 
ignorance of an air of the new opera, or the step of the last 
redowa. 

But if the cockney visitor is harmless, the cockney resident is 
not. When the downright citizen retires to the country, — not 
because he has any taste for it, but because it is the fashion to have 
a country house, — he often becomes, perhaps for the first time in 
his life, a dangerous member of society. There is always a certain 
influence about the mere possessor of wealth, that dazzles us, and 
makes us see things in a false light ; and the cockney has wealth. 
As he builds a house which costs five times as much as that of any 
of his country neighbors, some of them, who take it for granted 
that wealth and taste go together, fancy the cockney house puts 
their simple, modest cottages to the blush. Hence, they directly go 
to imitating it in their moderate way ; and so, a quiet country 
neighboi'hood is as certainly tainted with the malaria of cockneyism, 
as it would be by a ship-fever, or the air of the Pontine marshes. 

The cockneyisms which are fatal to the peace of mind, and 
more especially to the right feeling of persons of good sense and 
propriety in the country, are those which have perhaps a real mean- 
ing and value in town ; which are associated with excellent houses 
and people there ; and which are only absurd and foolish when 
transplanted, without the least reflection or adaptation, into the 
wholly different and distinct condition of things in country life. 

It would be too long and troublesome a task to give a catalogue 
of these sins against good sense and good taste, which we every 
15 



226 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

day see perpetrated by people who come from town, and who, we 
are bound to say, are far from always being cockneys ; but who, 
nevertheless, unthinkingly perpetrate these ever to be condemned 
cockneyisms. Among them, we may enumerate, as illustrations, — 
building large liouses, only to shut up the best rooms and live in 
the basement ; placing the first story so high as to demand a long 
flight of steps to get into the front door ; placing the dining-room 
below stairs, when there is abundant space on the first floor ; using 
the iron railings of street doors in town to porches and piazzas in 
the country; arranging suites of parlors with folding doors, precisely 
like a town house, whe-re other and far more convenient arrange- 
ments could be made ; introducing plate glass windows, and ornate 
stucco cornices in cottages of moderate size and cost; building 
large parlors for display, and small bed-rooms for daily use ; placing 
the house so near the street (with acres of land in the rear) as to 
destroy all seclusion, and secure all possible dust; and all the 
hundred like expedients, for producing the utmost effect in a small 
space in town, which are wholly unnecessary and uncalled for in the 
country. 

We remember few things more unpleasant than to enter a cock- 
ney house in the country. As the highest ideal of beauty in the 
mind of its o^vner is to reproduce, as nearly as possible, a fac-simile 
of a certain kind of town house, one is distressed with the entire 
want of fitness and appropriateness in every thing it contains. The 
furniture is all made for display, not for use ; and between a pro- 
fusion of gilt ornaments, embroidered white satin chaii-s, and other 
like finery, one feels that one has no rest for the sole of his foot. 

We do not mean, by these remarks, to have it understood that 
we do not admire really beautiful, rich and tasteful furniture, or 
ornaments and decorations belonging to the interior and exterior of 
houses in the country. But we only admire them when they are 
introduced in the right manner and the right place. In a country 
house of large size — a mansion of the first class — whei-e there are 
rooms in abundance for all purposes, and where a feeling of comfort, 
luxury, and wealth, reigns throughout, there is no reason why the 
most beautiful and highly finished decorations should not be seen 
in its drawing-room or saloon, — always supposing them to be taste- 



COCKNEYISM IN THE COUNTRY. 227 

fill and appropriate ; thougli Ave confess our feeling is, that a certain 
soberness should distinguish the richness of the finest mansion in the 
country from that in town. Still, in a villa or mansion, where all 
the details are carefully elaborated, where there is no neglect of 
essentials in oi-der to give effect to what first meets the eye, where 
every thing is substantia] and genuine, and not trick and tinsel, — 
there one expects to see more or less of the luxury of art in its best 
apartments. 

But all this pleasure vanishes in the tawdry and tinsel ■imitation 
of costly and expensive fin-niture, to be found in cockney country 
houses. Instead of a befitting harmony through the whole house, 
one sees many minor comforts visibly sacrificed to produce a little 
extra show in the parlor ; mock " fashionable " furniture, which, in- 
stead of being really fine, has only the look of finery, usurps in the 
principal room the place of the becoming, unpretending and modest 
fittings that belong there ; and one is constantly struck with the 
effort which the cottage is continually making to look like the town 
house, rather than to wear its own more ajipropriate and becoming 
modesty of expression. 

The pith of all that should be said on this subject, lies in a few- 
words, viz., that true taste lies in the union of the beautiful and the 
significant. Hence, as a house in the country is quite distinct in \ 
character and uses, in many respects, from a house in town, it 
should always be built and furnished upon a widely different princi- 1 
pie. It is far better, in a country house, to have an abundance of 
space, as many rooms as possible on a floor, the utmost convenience 
of arrangement, and a thorough realization of comfort throughout, 
than a couple of very fine apartments, loaded with showy furniture, 
"in the latest style," at the expense of the useful and convenient 
every where else. 

And we may add to this, that the superior charm of significance 
or appropriateness is felt instantly by every one, when it is attained 
— though display only imposes on vulgar minds. We have seen a 
cottage where the finest furniture was of oak in simple forms, where 
every thing like display was unknown, where every thing costly was 
eschewed, but where you felt, at a glance, that there was a prevail- 
ing taste and fitness, that gave a meaning to all, and brought all 



228 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

into Imrinony ; the furniture witli tlxe house, the liouse witli the 
grounds, and all with the life of its inmates. This cottage, we need 
scarcely say, struck all who entered it with a pleasure more real and 
enduring than that of any costly mansion in the land. The plea- 
sure arose from the feeling that all was significant ; that the cottage, 
its a;;rangement, its furniture, and its surroundings, were all in 
keeping with the country, with each other and with their uses ; and. 
that no cockneyisms, no imitations of city splendor, had violated 
the simplicity and modesty of the country. 

There must with us be progress in all things ; and an American 
cannot but be proud of the j^rogress of taste in this country. But 
as a great portion of the improvements, newly made in the country, 
are made by citizens, and not unfrequently by citizens whose time 
has been so closely occupied with business, that they have had no 
opportunity to cultivate a taste for rural matters, it is not surpi-ising 
that we should continually see transplanted, as vmexceptionable 
things, the ideas in houses, furniture, and even in gardens, which 
have been familiar to them in cities. 

As, however, it is an indisputable axiom, that there are laws of 
taste which belong to the country and country life, quite distinct 
from those which belong to town, the citizen always runs into cock- 
neyisms when he neglects these laws. And what we would gladly 
insist upon, therefore, is that it is only what is appropriate and 
significant in the country, (or what is equally so in town and 
country,) that can be adopted, without insulting the natural grace 
and freedom of umbrageous trees and green lawns. 

He who comes from a city, and wishes to build himself a 
country-seat, would do well to forget all that he considers the stand- 
ard of excellence in houses and furniture in to^ia, (and which are, 
perhaps, really excellent there,) and make a pilgrimage of inspection 
to the best country houses, villas and cottages, with their grounds, 
before he lays a stone in his foundation walls, or marks a curve of 
his walks. If he does this, he will be certain to open his eyes to 
the fact, that, though there are good models in town, for town life, 
there are far better models in the country, for country life. 



y. 



ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF COUNTRY VILLAGES. 

June, 1849. 
•' TF you, or any man of taste, wish to have a fit of the bhies, let 

-L him come to the village of . I have just settled here ; 

and all my ideas of rural beauty have been put to flight by what I 
see around me every day. Old wooden houses out of repair, and 
looking rickety and dejected; new wooden houses, distressingly 
lean in their proportions, chalky white in their clapboards, and 
spinachy green in their blinds. The chiirch is absolutely hideous, — 
a long box of card-board, with a huge pepper-box on the top. 
There is not a tree in the streets ; and if it were not for fields of re- 
freshing verdure that surround the place, I should have the ophthal- 
mia as well as the blue-devils. Is there no way of instilling some 
rudiments of taste into the minds of dwellers in remote country 
places ? " 

We beg our correspondent, from whose letter we quote the above 
paragraph, not to desjDair. There are always wise and good pur- 
poses hidden in the most common events of life ; and we have no 
doubt Pi'ovidence has sent him to the village of , as an apos- 
tle OF TASTE, to instil some ideas of beauty and fitness into the 
minds of its inhabitants. 

That the aspect of a large part of our rural villages, out of New 
England, is distressing to a man of taste, is undeniable. Not from 
want of means ; for the inhabitants of these villages are thriving, 
industrious people, and poverty is very little known there. Not 
tVuni want of materials ; for both nature and the useful arts are 



230 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

ready to give them eveiy tiling needful, to iinj)art a cheerful, taste- 
ful, and inviting aspect to their homes ; but sim|)l)' ti-om a poverty 
of ideas, and a dormant sense of the enjoyment to be derived from 
orderly, tasteful, and agreeable dwellings and streets, do these villa- 
ges merit the condemnation of all men of taste and right feeling. 

The first duty of an inhabitant of forlorn neighborhoods, like 

the village of , is to use all possible influence to have the 

streets planted with trees. To plant trees, costs little trouble or ex- 
pense to each property holder ; and once planted, there is some as- 
surance that, with the aid of time and nature, we can at least cast 
a graceful veil over the deformity of a country home, if we cannot 
wholly remodel its features. Indeed, a village whose streets are bare 
of trees, ought to be looked upon as in a condition not less ])itiable 
than a community without a schoolmaster, or a teacher of religion ; 
for certain it is, when the affections are so dull, and the domestic 
virtues so blunt that men do not care how their own homes and vil- 
lages look, they care very little for fulfilling any moral obligations 
not made compulsory by the strong arm of the law ; while, on the 
other hand, show us a Massachusetts village, adorned by its avenues 
of elms, and made tasteful by the aflfection of its inhabitants, and 
you also place before us the fact, that it is there where oixlei', good 
character, and virtuous deportment most of all adorn the lives and 
daily conduct of its people. 

Our correspondents who, like the one just quoted, are apostles 
of taste, must not be discouraged by lukewarmneas and opposition 
on the part of the inhabitants of these graceless villages. They 
must expect sneers and derision from the ignorant and prejudiced ; 
for, strange to say, poor human nature does not love to be shown 
that it is ignorant and prejudiced ; and men who would think a cow- 
shed good enougb to live in, if only their wants were concerned, 
take pleasure in pronouncing every man a visionary whose ideas 
rise above the level of their own accustomed vnsion. But, as an off- 
set to this, it should always be remembered that there are two great 
principles at the bottom of our national character, which the apostle 
of taste in the most benighted, graceless village, may safely 
count upon. One of these is the p-inciple of imitation^ which will 
never allow a Yankee to be outdone by his neighbors ; and the 



ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF COUNTRY VILLAGES. 231 

other, the principle of progress, which will not allow him to stand 
still when he discovei-s that his neighbor has really made an im- 
provement. 

Begin, then, by planting the first half-dozen trees in the public 
streets. "They will grow," as Sir Walter observed, "while you 
sleep ;" and once fairly settled in their new congTegation, so that 
they get the use of their arms, and especially of their tongues, it is 
quite extraordinary what sermons they will preach to those dull and 
tasteless villagers. Not a breeze that blows, but you will hear these 
tongues of theirs (which some look upon merely as leaves), whisper- 
ing the most eloquent appeals to any passer by. There are some, 
doubtless,, whose auriculars are so obtuse they they do not un- 
derstand this language of the trees ; but let even one of these walk 
home in a hot July day, when the sun that shines on the American 
continent has a face brighter than California gold, and if he does 
not return tlKanks devoutly for the cool shade of our half-dozen trees, 
as he approaches them and rests beneath their cool boughs, then is 
he a worse heathen than any piratical Malay of the Indian Ocean. 
But even such a man is sometimes convinced, by an appeal to the 
only chord that vibrates in the narrow compass of his soul, — that 
of utility, — when he sees with surprise a fine row of trees in a vil- 
lage, stretching out their leafy canopy as a barrier to a destructive 
fire, that otherwise would have crossed the street and burnt down 
the other half of the best houses in the village. 

The next step to improve the graceless village, is to persuade 
some of those who are erecting new buildings, to adopt more taste- 
ful models. And- by this we mean, not necessarily what builders 
call a "fancy house," decorated with various ornaments that are sup- 
posed to give beauty to a cottage ; but rather to copy some design, 
or some other building, where good proportions, pleasing form, and 
fitness for the use intended, give the beauty sought for, without call- 
ing in the aid of ornaments, which may heighten but never create 
beauty. If you cannot find such a house ready built to copy from, 
procure works where such designs exist, or, still better, a rough and 
cheap sketch from a competent architect, as a guide. Persuade 
your neighbor, who is about to build, that even if his house is to 
cost but $000, there is no economy that he can practise in the ex- 



232 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

penditure of that sum so indisputable, or which he will so com- 
pletely realize the value of afterwards, as $10 or $20 worth of ad- 
vice, with a few pen or pencil marks, to fix the ideas, upon paper, 
from an architect of acknowledged taste and judgment. Whether 
the house is to look awkward and ugly, or whether it is to be com- 
fortable and pleasing for years, all depend upon the idea of that 
house which previously exists in soinchody''s mind, — either architect, 
owner, or mechanic, — whoever, in short, conceives what that house 
shall be, before it becomes " a local habitation," or has any name 
among other houses already born in the hitherto graceless vil- 
lage. 

It is both surprising and pleasant, to one accustomed to watch 
the development of the human soul, to see the gradual but certain 
effect of building one really good and tasteful house in a graceless 
village. Just as certain as there is a dormant spark of the love of 
beauty, which underlays all natures extant, in that village, so certain 
will it awaken at the sight of that house. You will hear nothing 
about it ; oi- if you do, perhaps you may, at first, even hear all kinds 

of facetious comments on Mr. 's new house. But next year you 

will find the old mode abandoned by him who builds a new house. 
He has a new idea ; he strives to make his dwdling manifest it ; 
and this process goes on, till, by-and-by, you wonder what new 
genius has so changed the aspect of this village, and turned its neg- 
lected, bare, and lanky streets into avenues of fine foliage, and 
streets of neat and tasteful houses. 

It is an old adage, that " a cobbler's family has no shoes." We 
are forced to call the adage up for an explanation of the curious 
fact, that in five villages out of six in the United States, there does 
not appear to have been room enough in which properlj^ to lay out 
the streets or place the houses. Why, on a continent so broad that 
the mere public lands amount to an area of fifty acres for every 
man, woman, and child, in the commonwealth, there should not be 
found space sufficient to lay out country towns, so that the streets 
shall be wide enough for avenues, and the house-lots broad enough 
to allow sufficient trees and shrubbery to give a little pi-ivacy and 
seclusion, is one of the unexplained phenomena in the natural his- 
tory of our continent, which, along with the boulders and glaciers, 



ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF COUNTRY VILLAGES. 233 

we leave to the learned and ingenious Professor Agassiz. Certain 
it is, our ancestoi's did not bring over this national trait from Eng- 
land ; for in that small, and yet great kingdom, not larger than one 
of our lai'gest states, there is one city — London — which has more 
acres devoted to public parks, than can be numbered for this pur- 
pose in all America. 

It may appear too soon to talk of village greens, and village 
squares, or small parks planted with trees, and open to the common 
enjoyment of the inhabitants, in the case of graceless villages, 
where there is yet not a shade-tree standing in one of the streets. 
But this will come gradually ; and all the sooner, just in proportion 
as the apostles of taste multiply in various parts of the country. 
Persons interested in these improvements, and who are not aware of 
what has been done in some parts of New England, should imme- 
diately visit New Haven and Springfield. The former city is a 
bower of elms ; and the inhabitants who now walk beneath spa- 
cious avenues, of this finest of American trees, speak with gratitude 
of the energy, public spirit and taste of the late Mr. Hillhouse, who 
was the great apostle of taste for that city, years' ago, when the 
streets were as bare as those of the most graceless villages in the 
land. And what stranger has passed through Springfield, and not 
recognized immediately a superior spirit in the place, which long 
since suggested and planted the pretty little square which now orna- 
ments the town ? 

But we should be doing injustice to the principle of progi-ess, to 
which we have already referred, if we did not mention here the 
signs of the times, which we have lately noticed ; signs that prove 
the spirit of rural improvenient is fairly awake over this broad con- 
tinent. We have received accounts, within the last month, of the 
doings of ornamental tree associations, lately formed in five difterent 
states, from New Hampshire to Tennessee.* The object of these 
associations is to do precisely what nobody in particular thinks it 
his business to do ; that is, to rouse the public mind to the impor- 

* We cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of commending the public 
spirit of a gentleman in one of the villages in western New York, who, by 
offering a bounty for all trees planted in the village where he lives, has in- 
duced many to set about the work in good earnest. 



234 RUKAL ARCHITECTURE. 

tance of embellishing the streets of towns and villages, and to 
induce everybody to ])lant trees in front of his own premises. 

While we are writing this, we have received the printed report 
of one of these associations, — The Rockingham Farmers' Club, of 
Exeter, New Hampshire. The whole report is so much to the point, 
that we republish it entire in our Domestic Notices of the month ; 
but there is so much earnest enthusiasm in the first paragraph of 
the report, and it is so entirely apposite to pur present remarks, that 
we must also introduce it here : 

" Why are not the streets of all our villages shaded and adorned 
with trees ? Why are so many of our dwellings still unprotected 
from the burning heat of summer, and the * pelting of the pitiless 
storms' of winter ? Is it because in New England hearts, hurried 
and pressed as they are by care and business, there is no just appre- 
ciation of the importance of the subject ? Or is it that failure in 
the attempt, which almost every man has made, once in his life, in 
this way to ornament his home, has led many to the belief that 
there is some mystery, passing the comprehension of common men. 
about this matter of transplanting trees ? The answer may be 
found, we apprehend, partly in each of the reasons suggested. Ask 
your neighbor why he has not more trees about his home, and he 
will tell you that they are of no great use, and, besides, that it is 
very difficult to make them grow ; that he has tried it once or 
twice, and they have all died. Now these, the common reasons, 
are both ill-founded. It is of use for every man to surround him- 
self with objects of interest, to cultivate a taste for the beautiful in 
all things, and especially in the works of nature. It is of use for 
every family to have a home, a pleasant, happy home, hallowed by 
purifying influences. It is of use, that every child should be edu- 
cated, not only in sciences, and arts, and dead languages, but that 
his -affections and his taste should be developed and refined ; that 
the book of nature should be laid open to him ; and that he should 
learn to read her language in the flower and the leaf, written every- 
where, in the valley and on the hill-side, and hear it in the songs of 
birds, and the murmuring of the forest. If you would keep pure 
the heart of your child, and make his youth innocent and happy, 
surround him with objects of interest and beauty at home. If you 



ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF COUNTRY VILLAGES. 235 

would prevent a restless spirit, if you would save him from that 
lowest species of idolatry, ' the love of money,' and teach him to 
' love what is lovely,' adorn your dwellings, your places of worship, 
your school-houses, your streets and public squares, with trees and 
hedges, and lawns and flowers, so that his heart may ea"rly and ever 
be impressed with the love of Him who made them all." * * 
What more can we add to this eloquent appeal from the com- 
mittee of a farmers' club in a village of New Hampshire ? Onl}' 
to entreat other farmers' clubs to go and do likewise ; other orna- 
mental tree societies to carry on the good work of adorning the 
country ; other apostles of taste not to be discouraged, but to be 
unceasing in their efforts, till they see the clouds of ignorance and 
prejudice dispersing ; and, finally, all who live in the country and 
have an affection for it, to take hold of this good work of rural im- 
provement, till not a GRACELESS VILLAGE cau be found from the 
Penobscot to the Rio Grande, or a man of intelligence who is not 
ashamed to be found living in such a village. 



VI. 

OUR COUNTRY VILLAGES. 

June, 1850. 

WITHOUT any boasting, it may safely be said, that the natural 
features of our common country (as the speakers in Congress 
call her), are as agreeable and prepossessing as those of any other 
land — whether merry England, la belle France, or the German 
fatherland. We have greater lakes, larger rivers, broader and more 
fertile prairies than the old world can show ; and if the Alleghanies 
are rather dwarfish when compared to the Alps, there are peaks and 
summits, "castle hills" and volcanoes, in our gi'eat back-bone range 
of the Pacific — the Rocky Mountains — which may safely hold up 
their heads along with Mont Blanc and the JungtVau. 

Providence, then, has blessed this country — our country — with 
"natural born" features, which we may look upon and be glad. 
But how have we sought to deform the fair landscape here and there 
by little, miserable shabby-looking towns and villages ; not misera- 
ble and shabby-looking from the poverty and wretchedness of the 
inhabitants — for in no land is there more peace and plenty — but 
miserable and shabby-looking from the absence of taste, symmetry, 
order, space, proportion, — all th'at constitutes beauty. Ah, well and 
truly did Cowper say, 

"God made the country, but »»a?t made the town." 

For in the one, we every where see utility and beauty harmoniously 



OUR COUNTRY VILLAGES. 237 

combined, wliile the other presents us but too often the reverse ; 
that is to say, the marriage of utiHty and deformity. 

Some of our readers may remind us that we have aheady 
I)reached a sermon from this text. No matter; we should be glad 
to preach fifty ; yes, or even establish a sect, — as that seeriis the only 
way of making proselytes now, — whose duty it should be to conveit 
people living in the country towns to the true faith ; we mean the 
true rural faith, viz., that it is immoral and uncivilized to live in 
mean and uncouth villages, where there is no poverty, or want of 
intelligence in the inhabitants ; that there is nothing laudable in 
having a piano-forte and mahogany chairs in the pai'lor, where the 
streets outside are barren of shade trees, destitute of side-walks, and 
populous with pigs and geese. 

We are bound to admit (with a little shame and humiliation, — 
being a native of New-York, the " Empire State"), that there is 
one part of the Union Avhere the millennium of country to^vns, and 
good government, and I'ural taste has not only commenced, but is in 
full domination. We mean, of course, Massachusetts. The travel- 
ler may go from one end of that State to the other, and find llouiish- 
ing villages, with broad streets lined with maples and elms, behind 
which are goodly rows of neat and substantial dwellings, full of evi- 
dences of order, comfort and taste. Throughout the whole State, no 
animals are allowed to run at large in the streets of towns and vil- 
lages. Hence so much more cleanliness than elsewhere ; so much 
more order and neatness ; so many more pretty rural lanes ; so many 
inviting flower-gardens and oi-chards — onlji' separated from the passer- 
by by a low railing or hedge, instead of a formidable board fence. 
Now, if you cross the State line into New- York — a State of far 
greater wealth than Massachusetts, as long settled and nearly as pop- 
ulous — you feel directly that you are in the land of " pigs and poul- 
try," in the least agreeable sense of the word. Li passing through 
villages and towns, the truth is still more striking, as you go to the 
south and west ; and you feel little or nothing of that sense, of 
" how pleasant it must be to live here," which the traveller thi-ough 
Berkshire, or the Connecticut valley, or the prett}- \illages about 
Boston, feels moving his heart within him. You arc rather inclined 
to wish there were two new commandments, viz. : thou shalt plant 



238 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

trees, to hide the nakedness of the streets ; and thou shalt not keep 
pigs — except in the back yard ! * 

Our more reflective and inquiring readers will naturally ask, why 
is this better condition of things — a condition that denotes better 
citizens, better laws, and higher civilization — confined almost wholly 
to Massachusetts ? To save them an infinite deal of painstaking, re- 
search and investigation, we will tell them in a few words. That 
State is better educated than the rest. She sees the advantage, mor- 
ally and socially, of orderly, neat, tasteful villages ; in producing 
better citizens, in causing the laws to be respected, in making homes 
dearer and more sacred, in making domestic life and the enjoyment 
of property to be more truly and rightly estimated. 

And these are the legitimate and natural results of this kind of 
improvement we so ardently desire in the outward life and appear- 
ance of rural towns. If our readers suppose us anxious for the build- 
ing of good houses, and the planting of street avenues, solely that 
the country may look more beautiful to the eye, and that the taste 
shall be gratified, they do us an injustice. This is only the external 
sign by which we would have the country's health and beauty 
known, as we look for the health and beauty of its fair daughters in 
the presence of the rose on their cheeks. But as the latter only 
blooms lastingly there, Avhen a good constitution is joined with 
healthful liabits of mind and body, so the tasteful appearance which 
we long for in our country towns, we seek as the outward mark 
of education, moral sentiment, love of home, and refined cultiva- 
tion, which makes the main diflference between Massachusetts and 
Madagascar. 

We have, in a former number, said something as to the practi- 
cal manner in which "gi-aceless villages" may be improved. We 
have urged the force of example in those who set about improving 

* We believe we must lay this Icattersin at the doors of our hard-working 
emigrants from the Emerald Isle. Wherever they settle, they cling to their 
ancient fraternity of porkers; and think it "no free country where pigs 
can't have their liberty." Newburgh is by no means a well-planned village, 
though scarcely surpassed for scenery ; but we believe it may claim the 
credit of being tlie only one among all the towns, cities and villages of New- 
York, where pigs and geese have not the freedom of the streets. 



OUR COUNTRY VILLAGES. 239 

their own property, and shown the influence of even two or three 
persons in giving an air of civilization and refinement to the streets 
and suburbs of country towns. There is not a village in America, 
however badly planned at first, or ill-built afterwards, that may not 
be redeemed, in a great measure, by the aid of shade trees in the 
streets, and a little shrubbery in the front yards, and it is never 
too late or too early to project improvements of this kind. Every 
spring and every autumn should witness a revival of associated 
efibrts on the part of select-men, trustees of corporations, and persons 
of means and influence, to adorn and embellish the Eternal condi- 
tion of their towns. Those least alive to the result as regards beauty, 
may be roused as to the effects of increased value given to the prop- 
erty thus improved, and villages thus rendered attractive and desi- 
rable as places of residence. 

But let us now go a step further than this. In no country, per- 
haps, are there so many neio villages and towns laid out every year 
as in the United States. Indeed, so lai'ge is the number, that the 
builders and projectors are fairly at a loss for names, — ancient and 
modern history having been literally worn threadbare by the god- 
fathers, until all association with great heroes and mighty deeds is 
fairly beggared by this re-christening going on in our new settle- 
ments and fiiture towns, as yet only populous to the extent of six 
houses. And notwithstanding the apparent vastness of our territory, 
the gi'owth of new towns and new States is so wonderful — fifteen or 
twenty years giving a population of hundreds of thousands, where 
all was wilderness before — that the plan and arrangement of new 
towns ought to be a matter of national importance. And yet, to 
judge by the manner in which we see the thing done, there has not, 
in the whole duration of the republic, been a single word said, or a 
single plan formed, calculated to embody past experience, or to 
assist in any way the laying out of a village or town. 

We have been the more struck by this fact in observing the 
efforts of some companies who have lately, upon the Hudson, witliiii 
some twenty or more miles of New- York, undertaken to lay ou. 
rural villages, with some pretension to taste and comfort ; and aim, 
at least, at combining the advantages of the country with easy rail- 
road access to them. 



240 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

Our readers most interested in sucli matters as tliis (and, taking 
our principal cities together, it is a pretty large class), will be inter- 
ested to know what is the beau-ideal of these companies, who un- 
dertake to buy tracts of land, lay them out in the best manner, and 
form the most complete and attractive rural villages, in order to 
tempt those tired of the wayworn life of sidewalks, into a neighbor- 
hood where, without losing society, they can see the horizon, breathe 
the fresh air, and walk upon elastic greensward. 

Well, the beau-ideal of these newly-planned villages is not down 
to the zero of dirty lanes and shadeless roadsides ; but it rises, we 
are sorry to say, no higher than streets, lined on each side with 
shade-trees, and bordered Avith rows of houses. For the most part, 
those houses — cottages, we pi'esume — are to be built on fifty-feet 
lots ; or if any buyer is not satisfied with that amount of elbow room, 
he may buy two lots, though certain that his neighbor will still be 
within twenty feet of his fence. And this is the sum total of the 
rural beauty, convenience, and comfort, of the latest plan for a rural 
village in the Union.* The buyer gets nothing more than he has 
in town, save his little patch of back and front yard, a little peep 
down the street, looking one way at the river, and the other way at 
the sky. So far from gaining any thing which all inhabitants of a 
village should gain by the combination, one of these new villagers 
actually loses ; for if he were to go by himself, he would buy land 
cheaper, and have a fresh landscape of fields and hills around him, 
instead of houses on all sides, almost as closely placed as in the city, 
which he has endeavored to fly from. 

Now a rural village — newly planned in the suburbs of a great 
city, and planned, too, specially for those whose circumstances will 
allow them to own a tasteful cottage in such a village — should pre- 
sent attractions much higher than this. It should aim at something 
higher than mere rows of houses upon streets crossing each other at 
right angles, and bordered with shade-trees. Any one may find Jis 
good shade-trees, and much better houses, in certain streets of the 
city which he leaves behind him ; and if he is to give up fifty con- 

* We say plan, but we do not mean to include in this such villages as 
Northampton, Brookline, <fec., beautiful and tasteful as they are. But they 
are in Massachusetts ! 



OUR COUNTRY VILLAGES. 241 

veniences and comforts, long enjoyed in town, for the mere fact of 
fresh air, he had better take board during the summer months in 
some snug farmhouse as before. 

The indispensable desiderata in rural villages of this kind, are 
the following : 1st, a large open space, common, or park, situated 
in the middle of the village — not less than twenty acres ; and better, 
if fifty or more in extent. This should be well planted with groups 
of trees, and kept as a lawn. The expense of mowing it would be 
paid by the grass in some cases ; and in others, a considciable part 
of the space might be inclosed with a wire fence, and fed by sheep 
or cows, like many of the public parks in England. 

This park would be. the nucleus or heart of the village^ and 
would give it an essentially rural character. Around it should be 
grouped all the best cottages and residences of the place; and this 
would be secured by selling no lots fronting upon it of less than 
one-fourth of an acre in extent. Wide streets, with rows of elms or 
maples, should diverge from the park on each side, and upon these 
streets smaller lots, but not smaller than one hundred feet front, 
should be sold for smaller cottages. 

In this way, we would secure to our village a permanent rural 
character ; first, by the possession of a large central space, always 
devoted to park or pleasure-ground, and always held as joint pro- 
perty, and for the common use of the whole village ; second, by the 
imperative arrangement of cottages or dwellings around it, in such 
a way as to secure in all parts of the village sufficient space, view, 
circulation of air, and broad, well-planted avenues of shade-trees. 

After such a village was built, and the central park planted a 
few years, the inhabitants would not be contented with the mere 
meadow and trees, usually called a park in this country. By sub- 
mitting to a small annual tax per family, they could turn the whole 
park, if small, or considerable portions, here and there, if large, into 
pleasure-grounds. In the latter, there would be collected, by the 
combined means of the village, all the rare, hardy shrubs, trees, and 
plants, usually found in the private grounds of any amateur in 
America. Beds and masses of ever-blooming roses, sweet-scented 
climbers, and the richest shrubs, would thus be open to the enjoy- 
ment of all during the whole gj-owiug season. Those who had 
16 



242 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

neitlior tlie iiioans, time, nor inclination, to devote to the culture of 
private pleasure-grounds, could thus enjoy those which belonged to 
all. Others might prefer to devote their own garden to fruits and 
vegetables, since the pleasure-grounds, which belonged to all, and 
which all would enjoy, would, by their greater breadth and magni- 
tude, offer beauties and enjoyments which few private gardens can 
give. 

The next ste]?, after the possession of such public pleasure- 
grounds, would be the social and common enjoyment of them. 
Upon the well-mown glades of lawn, and beneath the shade of the 
forest-trees, would be formed rustic seats. Little arbors would be 
placed near, where in midsummer evenings ices would be served to 
all who wished them. And, little by little, the musical taste of the 
village (with the help of those good musical folks — the German 
emigrants) would organize itself into a band, which would occa- 
sionally delight tlie ears of all frequenters of the park with popular 
airs. 

Do we overrate the mental and moral influences of such a com- 
mon ground of entertainment as this, when we say that the inhabit- 
ants of such a village — enjoying in this way a common interest in 
flowers, trees, the fresh air, and sweet music, daily — would have 
something more healthful than the ordinary life of cities, and more 
refining and elevating than the common gossip of country villages ? 

" Ah ! I see, Mr. Editor, you are a bit of a communist." By no 
means. On the contrary, we believe, above all things under- heaven, 
in the power and virtue of the individual home. We devote our 
life and humble efforts to raising its condition. But people must 
live in towns and villages, and therefore let us raise the condition 
uf towns and villages, and especially of rural towns and villages, by 
all possible means 1 

But we are republican ; and, shall we confess it, we are a little 
vexed that as a people generally, we do not see how much in Amer- 
ica we lose by not using the advantages of republicanism. We 
mean now, for refined culture, physical comfort, and the like Re- 
publican education we are now beginning pretty well to understand 
the value of; and it will not be long before it will be hard to find a 
native citizen who cannot read and write. And this comes by 



OUR COUNTRY VILLAGES. 243 

making every man see what a great moral and intellectual good 
comes from cheerfully beai-ing a part in the burden of popular edu- 
cation. Let us next take up popular refinement in the arts, manners, 
social hfe, and innocent enjoyments, and we shall see what a virtuous 
and educated republic can really become. 

Besides this, it is the proper duty of the state — that is, the people 
— to do in this way what the reigning power does in a monarchy. 
If the kings and princes in Germany, and the sovereign of England, 
have made magnificent parks and pleasure-gardens, and thrown 
them wide open for the enjoyment of all classes of the people (the 
latter, after all, having to pay for it), may it not be that our sover- 
eign people will (far more cheaply, as they may) make and support 
these great and healthy sources of pleasure and refinement for 
themselves in America ? We believe so ; and we confidently wait 
for the time when public parks, public gardens, public galleries, and 
tasteful villages, shall be among the peculiar features of our happy 
republic. 



VII. 

ON SIMPLE RURAL COTTAGES. 

September, 1846. 

THE simple rural cottage, or the Working Man's Cottage, deserves 
some serious consideration, and we wish to call the attention 
of our readers to it at this moment. The pretty suburban cottage, 
and the ornamented villa, are no longer vague and rudimentary 
ideas in the minds of our people. The last five years have produced 
in the environs of all our principal towns, in the Eastern and Middle 
States, some specimens of tasteful dwellings of this class, that would 
be considered beautiful examples of rural architectiu-e in any part 
of the world. Our attention has been called to at least a dozen 
examples lately, of rural edifices, altogether charming and in the 
best taste. 

In some parts of the country, the inhabitants of the suburbs of 
towns appear, indeed, almost to have a mania on the subject of or- 
namental cottages. Weary of the unfitness and the uncouthness of 
the previous models, and inspired with some notions of rural Gothic, 
they have seized it with a kind of frenzy, and carjDenters, distracted 
with verge-boards and gables, have, in some cases, made sad work 
of the picturesque. Here and there we see a really good and well- 
proportioned ornamental dwelling. But almost in the immediate 
neighborhood of it, soon spring up tasteless and meagre imitations, 
the absurdity of whose effect borders upon a caricature. 

Notwithstanding this deplorably bad taste, rural architecture is 
making a progress in the United States that is really wonderful. 
Among the many failures in cottages, there are some very success- 



ON SIMPLE RURAL COTTAGES. 245 

ful attempts, and every rural dwelling, really well designed and ex- 
ecuted, has a strong and positive effect upon the good taste of the 
whole country. 

There is, perhaps, a more intuitive judgment — we mean a natu- 
ral and instinctive one — in the popular mind, regarding architecture, 
than any other one of the fine arts. We have known many men, 
who could not themselves design a good common gate, who yet felt 
truly, and at a glance, the beauty of a well-proportioned and taste- 
ful house, and the deformity of one whose proportions and details 
were bad. Why then are there so many failures in building orna- 
mental cottages ? 

We imagine the answer to this lies plainly in the fact, that the 
most erroneous notions prevail respecting the proper use of decora- 
tion in rural architecture. 

It is the most common belief and practice, with those whose 
taste is merely borrowed, and not founded upon any clearly defined 
principles, that it is only necessary to adopt the ornaments of a cer- 
tain building, or a certain style of building, to produce the best effect 
of the style or building in question. But so far is this from being the 
true mode of attaining this result, that in every case where it is adopt- 
ed, as we perceive at a glance, the result is altogether unsatisfactory. 

Ten years ago the mock-Grecian fashion was at its height. Per- 
haps nothing is more truly beautiful than the pure and classical 
Greek temple — so perfect in its proportions, so chaste and harmo- 
nious in its decorations. It is certainly not the best style for a coun- 
try house ; but still we have seen a few specimens in this country, 
of really beautiful villas, in this style — where the proportions of the 
whole, and the admirable completeness of all the parts, executed on 
a fitting scale, produced emotions of the highest pleasure. 

But, alas ! no sooner were there a few sj^ecimens of the classical 
style in the country, than the Greek temple mania became an epi- 
demic. Churches, banks, and court-houses, one could very well bear 
to see Vitruvianized. Their simple uses and respectable size bore 
well the honors which the destiny of the day forced upon them. 
But to see the five orders applied to every other building, from the 
rich merchant's mansion to the smallest and meanest of all edifices, 
was a spectacle which made even the warmest admirers of Vitruvius 



246 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

sad, and would have made a true Greek believe that the gods who 
preside over beauty and harmony, had for ever abandoned the new 
world ! 

But the Greek temple disease has passed its crisis. The people 
have survived it. Some few buildings of simple forms,. and conve- 
nient arrangements, that stood here and there over the country, ut- 
tering silent rebukes, perhaps had something to do with bringing us 
to just notions of fitness and proj^riety. Many of the perishable 
wooden porticoes have fallen down ; many more will soon do so ; 
and many have been pulled down, and replaced by less pretending 
piazzas or verandas. 

Yet we are now obliged to confess that we see strong symptoms 
manifesting themselves of a second disease, which is to disturb the 
architectural growth of our people. We feel that we shall not be 
able to avert it, but perhaps, by exhibiting a diagnosis of the symp- 
toms, we may prevent its extending so widely as it might other- 
wise do. 

We allude to the mania just springing up for a kind of sjnn-ious 
I'ural Gothic cottage. It is nothing more than a miserable wooden 
thing, tricked out with flimsy verge-boards, and unmeaning gables. 
It has nothing of the true character of the cottage it seeks to imi- 
tate. It bears the same relation to it that a child's toy-house does 
to a real and substantial habitation. 

If we inquire into the cause of these architectural abortions, 
i'ithcr Grecian or Gothic, we shall find that they always arise from 
a poverty of ideas on the subject of style in architecture. The no- 
vice in architecture always supposes, when he builds a common 
house, and decorates it with the showiest ornaments of a certain 
style, that he has erected an edifice in that style. He deludes him- 
self in the same manner as the schoolboy who, with his gaudy paper 
cap and tin sword, imagines, himself a great general. We build a 
•miserable shed, make one of its ends a portico with Ionic columns, 
and call it a temple in the Greek style. At the same time, it has 
none of the proportions, nothing of the size, solidity, and perfection 
of details, and probably few or none of the remaining decorations 
of that style. 

So too, we now see erected a wooden cottage of a few feet in 



ON SIMPLE RURAL COTTAGES. 247 

length, gothicized by the introduction of three or four pointed win- 
dows, little gables enough for a residence of the first class, and a 
profusion of thin, scolloped verge-boards, looking more like card or- 
naments, than the solid, heavy, carved decorations proper to the 
style imitated. 

Let those who wish to avoid such exhibitions of bad taste, recur 
to some just and correct principles on this subject. 

One of the soundest maxims ever laid down on this subject, by 
our lamented friend Loudon, (who imderstood its principles as well 
as any one that ever wrote on this subject), was the following : 
'•'•Nothing should be introduced into any cottage design, however 
ornamental it may appear, that is at variance ivith propriety, com- 
fort, or sound workmanship^ 

The chiefest objection that we make to these over-decorated 
cottages of very small size, (which we have now in view,) is that 
the introduction of so much ornament is evidently a \'iolation of 
the principles oi propriety. 

It cannot be denied by the least reflective mind, that there are 
several classes of dwelling-houses in every country. The mansion of 
the wealthy proprietor, which is filled with pictures and statues, 
ought certainly to have a superior architectural chai-acter to the 
cottage of the industrious workingman, who is just able to furnish 
a comfortable home for his family. While the first is allowed to 
display even an ornate style of building, which his means will en- 
able him to complete and render somewhat perfect — the other can- 
not adopt the same ornaments without rendering a cottage, which 
might be agreeable and pleasing, from its fitness and genuine sim- 
plicity, offensive and distasteful through its ambitious, borrowed 
decorations. 

By adopting such ornaments they must therefore violate pro- 
priety, because, architecturally, it is not fitting that the humble cot- 
tage should wear the decorations of a superior dwelling, any more 
than that the plain workingman should wear the sanie diamonds 
that represent the superfluous wealth of his neighbor. In a cot- 
tage of the smallest size, it is e\'ident, also, that, if its tenant is the 
owner, he must make some sacrifice of comfort to produce effect ; 
and he waives the principle which demands sound workmanship, 



248 KURAL AKCHITECTURE. 

since to adopt any higbly ornamental style, the possessor of small 
means is obliged to make those ornaments flimsy and meagre, 
which ought to be substantial and carefully executed. 

Do we then intend to say, that the humble cottage must be left 
bald and tasteless ? By no means. We desire to see every rural 
dwelling in America tasteful. When the intelligence of our active- 
minded pfeople has been turned in this direction long enough, we 
are confident that this country will more abound in beautiful rural 
dwellings than any other part of the world. But we wish to see 
the workingman's cottage made tasteful in a simple and fit man- 
ner. We wish to see him eschew all ornaments that are inappro- 
priate and unbecoming, and give it a simple and pleasing character 
by the use of truthful means. 

For the cottage of this class, we would then entirely reject all 
attempts at columns or verge-boards.* If the owner can afi:brd it, 
we would, by all means, have a veranda (piazza), however small ; 
for we consider that feature one affording the greatest comfort. If 
the cottage is of wood, we would even build it with strong rough 
boards, painting and sanding the same. 

We would, first of all, give our cottage the best pfoportiom. 
It should not be too narrow ; it should not be too high. These are 
the two prevailing faults with us. After giving it an agreeable pro- 
portion — which is the highest source of all material beauty — we 
would give it something more of character as well as comfort, by 
extending the roof. Nothing is pleasanter to the eye than the 
shadow afforded by a projecting eave. It is nearly impossible that 
a house should be quite ugly, with an amply projecting roof: as it 
is difficult to render a simple one pleasing, when it is narrow and 
pinched about the eaves. 

After this, we would bestow a little character by a bold and 
simple dressing, or facing, about the windows and doors. The 

* Of course, these remarks regarding decorations do not ajjply strictly 
to the ease of cottages for the tenants, gardeners, farmers, etc., of a large 
estate. In that ease, such dwellings form parts of a highly finished whole. 
The means of the proprietor are sufficient to render them complete of their 
kind. Yet even in this case, we much prefer a becoming simplicity in tho 
cottages of such a desmesne. 



ON SIMPLE RURAL COTTAGES. 249 

chimneys may next be attended to. Let them be less clumsy and 
heavy, if possible, than usual. 

This would be character enough for the simplest class of cot- 
tages. We would rather aim to render them striking and expres- 
sive by a good outline, and a few simple details, than by the imita- 
tion of the ornaments of a more complete and highly finished style 
of building. 

In figs. 1 and 2, we have endeavored to give two views of a 
workingman's cottage, of humble means.* 

AVhatever may be thought of the effect of these designs, (and 
we assure our readers that they appear much better when built 
than upon paper,) we think it will not be denied, that they have 
not the defects to which we have just alluded. The style is as eco- 
nomical as the cheapest mode of building ; it is expressive of the 
simple wants of its occupant ; and it is, we conceive, not without 
some tasteful character. 

Last, though not least, this mode of building cottages is well 
adapted to our country. The material — wood — is one which must, 
yet for some years, be the only one used for small cottages. The 
projecting eaves partially shelter the building from our hot sun and 
violent storms ; and the few simple details, which may be said to 
confer something of an ornamental character, as the rafter brackets 
and window dressings, are such as obviously grow out of the pri- 
mary conveniences of the house — the necessity of a roof for shelter, 
and the necessity of windows for light. 

Common narrow siding, (i. e. the thin clap-boarding in general 
use,) we would not employ for the exterior of this class of cottages 
— nor, indeed, for any simple rural buildings. What we greatly 
prefer, are good strong and sound boards, from ten to fourteen 
inches wide, and one to one and a fourth inches thick. These 
should be tongued and grooved so as to make a close joint, and 
nailed to the frame of the house in a vertical manner. The joint 
should be covered on the outside with a narrow strip of inch board, 
from two to three inches wide. The accompanying cut, fig. 3, a, 

* We do not give the interior plan of these, at present. Our only ob- 
ject now is to call attention to the exteriors of dwellings of this class. 



250 



RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 



showing a section of this mode of weather-boarding will best ex- 
plain it to the reader. 

We first pointed out this mode of covering, in our " Cottage 

Residences." A great 
number 6f gentlemen 
have since adopted it, 
and all express them- 
selves highly gratified 
with it. It is by far 
the most expressive 
and agreeable mode 
of building in wood 
for the country ; it is 
stronger, equally cheap 
and much more dura- 
ble than the thin sid. 
ing ; and it lias a cha- 
racter of strength and 
permanence, wliich, to 
our eye, narrow and 
When filled in with cheap soft brick, 




CL 



Fig. 8. Cottage Siding and Eoofln 

thin boards never can have 

it also makes a very warm house. 

The rafters of these two cottages are stout joists, placed two feet 
apart, which are allowed to extend beyond the house two feet, to 
answer the purpose of brackets^ for the projecting eaves. Fig. 3, 6, 
will show, at a glance, the mode of rafter boarding and shingling 
over these rafters, so as to form the simplest and best kind of 
roof.* 

The window dressings, Avhich should have a bold and simple 
character, and made by nailing on the weather boarding stout 



* The simplest mode of forming an eave gutter on a pi'ojecting roof like 
this, is shown in the cut, fig. 3 at c. It consists merely of a tin trough, fast- 
ened to the roof by its longer portion, which extends up under one layer 
of shingles. This lies close upon the roof. The trough being directly over 
the line of the outer face of the house, the leader d, which conveys away 
the water, passes down in a straight line, avoiding the angles necessary in 
the common mode. 



ON SIMPLE RURAL COTTAGES. 



251 



\ 



strips, four inches wide, fig. 4, o, of plank, one inch and a half in 

thickness. The coping piece, 6, is of the same thickness, and six 

to eight inches wide, 

supported by a couple 

of pieces of joists, c, 

nailed under it for 

brackets. 

We have tried the 
effect of this kind of 
exterior, using tin- 
plamd boards, to 
which we have given 
two good coats of 
paint, sanding the 
second coat. The ef- 
fect we think much 
more agreeable — be- 
cause it is in better 
keeping with a rustic 
cottage, than when 
the more expensive 
mode of using planed 
boards is resorted to. 

Some time ago, Ave ventured to record our objections to luhite 
as a imiversal color for country houses. We have had great satis- 
faction, since that time, in seeing a gradual improvement taking 
place with respect to this matter. Neutral tints are, with the best 
taste, now every where preferred to strong glaring colors. Cottages 
of this class, we would always paint some soft and pleasing shade 
of drab or fawn color. These are tints Avhich, on the whole, har- 
monize best Avith the surrounding hues of the country itself. 

These two little designs are intended for the simplest cottages, 
to cost from tAvo to five hundred dollars. Our readers Avill not un- 
derstand us as offering them as complete models of a Avorkingman's 
cottage. They are only partial examples of our vieAvs and taste in 
this matter. We shall continue the subject, from time to time, 
Avith various other examples. 




Cottage AVindow Dressing 



VIII. 

ON THE COLOR OF COUNTRY HOUSES. 

May, 1847. 

CHARLES DICKENS, in that unlucky visit to America, in 
which he was treated like a spoiled child, and left it in the 
humor that often follows too lavish a bestowal of sugar plums on 
spoiled children, made now and then a remark in his characteristic 
vein of subtle perceptions. Speaking of some of our wooden vil- 
lages — the houses as bright as the greenest blinds and the whitest 
weather-boarding can make them — he said it was quite impossible 
to believe them real, substantial habitations. They looked " as if 
they had been put up on Saturday night, and were to be taken down 
on Monday morning ! " 

There is no wonder that any tourist, accustomed to the quiet 
and harmonious color of buildings in an English landscape, should 
be shocked at the glare and rawness of many of our country dwell- 
ings. Brown, the celebrated English landscape gardener, used to 
say of a new red brick house, that it would " put a whole valley in a 
fever ! " Some of our freshly painted villages, seen in a bright sum- 
mer day, might give a man with weak eyes a fit of the oph- 
thalmia. 

We have previously ventured a word or two against^ this na- 
tional passion for white paint, and it seems to us a fitting moment 
to look the subject boldly in the face once more. 

In a country where a majority of the houses are built of wood, 
the use of some paint is an absolute necessity in point of economy. 
^ hat the colors of this paint are, we consider a matter no less im- 
portant in point of taste. 



ON THE COLOR OF COUNTRY HOUSES, 253 

Now, genuine white lead (the color nominally used for most 
exteriors) is one of the dearest of paints.* It is not, therefore, 
economy which leads our countrymen into such a dazzling error. 
Some mistaken notions, touching its good effect, in connection with 
the country, is undoubtedly at the bottom of it. " Give me," says a re- 
tired citizen, before whose eyes red brick and dusty streets have been 
the only objects for years, "give me a white house with bright green 
blinds in the country." To him, white is at once the newest, clean- 
est, smartest, and most conspicuous color which it is possible to 
choose for his cottage or villa. Its freshness and newness he pnzes 
as a clown does that of his Sunday suit, the more the first day after 
it comes from the tailor, with all the unsullied gloss and glitter of 
gilt buttons. To possess a house which has a quiet air, as though 
it might have been inhabited and well taken care of for years, is no 
pleasure to him. He desires every one to know that he, Mr. Broad- 
cloth, has come into the country and built a new house. Nothing 
will give the stamp of newness so strongly as white paint. Besides 
this, he does not wish his light to be hidden under a bushel. He 
has no idea of leading an obscure life in the countay. Seclusion 
and privacy are the only blue devils of his imagination. He wishes 
every passer-by on the river, railroad, or highway, to see and know 
that this is Mr. Broadcloth's villa. It must be conspicuous — there- 
fore it is painted white. 

Any one who has watched the effect of example in a country 
neighborhood, does not need to be told that all the small dwellings 
that are built the next season after Mr. Broadcloth's new house, are 
painted, if possible, a shade whiter, and the blinds a little more in- 
tensely verdant — what the painters triumphantly call " French 
green." There is no resisting the fashion ; those who cannot afford 
paint use whitewash ; and whole villages, to borrow Miss Miggs's 
striking illustration, look like " whitenin' and supelters." 

Our first objection to white, is, that it is too glaring and con- 

* We say genuine white lead, for it is notorious that foiu'-fifths of the 
white paiut sold under this name in the United States, is only an imitation 
of it, composed largely of whiting. Though the first cost of the latter is lit- 
tle, yet as it soon rubs off and speedily repuires renewal, it is one of the dear- 
est colors in the end. 



254 ■ RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

spicuous. We scarcely know any thing more uncomfortable to the 
eye, than to approach the sunny side of a house in one of our bril- 
liant midsummer days, when it revels in the fashionable purity of its 
color. It is absolutely painful. Nature, full of kindness for man, has 
• covered most of the surface that meets his eye in the country, with 
a soft green hue — at once the most refreshing and most grateful to 
the eye. These habitations that we have referred to, appear to be 
colored on the very opposite jjrinciple, and one needs, in broad sun- 
shine, to turn his eyes away to relieve them by a glimpse of the 
soft and refreshing shades that every where pervade the trees, the 
grass, and the surface of the earth. 

Our second objection to white is, that it does not harmonize 
with the country, and thei'eby mai's the effect of rural landscapes. 
Much of the beauty of landscape depends on what painters call 
breadth of tone — which is caused by broad masses of colors that 
harmonize and blend agreeably together. Nothing tends to destroy 
breadth of tone so much as any object of considerable size, and of a 
brilliant white. It stands harslily apart from all the soft shades of 
the scene. Hence landscape painters always studiously avoid the 
introduction of white in their buildings, and give them instead, 
some neutral tint — a tint which unites or contrasts agreeably with 
the color of trees and grass, and which seems to blend into other 
parts of natural landscape, instead of being a discordant note in the 
general harmony. 

There is always, perhaps, something not quite agreeable in ob- 
jects of a dazzling whiteness, when brought into conti-ast mth other 
colors. Mr. Price, in his essays on the Beautiful and Picturesque, 
conceived that very white teeth gave a silly expression to the coun- 
tenance — and brings forward, in illustration of it, the well-known 
soubriquet which Horace Walpole bestowed on one of his acquaint- 
ances — " the gentleman with the foolish teeth." 

No one is successful in rural improvements, who does not study 
nature, and take her for the basis of his practice. Now, in natural 
landscape, any thing like strong and bright colors is seldom seen, 
except in very minute jDortions, and least of all pure white — chiefly 
appearing in small objects like flowers. The practical rule which 
should be deduced from this, is, to avoid all those colors which na- 



ON THE COLOR OF COUNTRY HOUSES. 255 

ture avoids. In buildings, we should copy those that she offers 
chiefly to the eye — such as those of the soil, rocks, wood, and the 
bark of trees, — the materials of which houses are built. These ma- 
terials offer us the best and most natm-al study from which harmo- 
nious colors for the houses themselves should be taken. 

Wordsworth, in a little volume on the Sceneiy of the Lakes, re- 
marks that the objections to white as a color, in large spots or 
masses, in landscapes, are insurmountable. He says it destroys the 
gradations of distances, haunts the eye, and disturbs the -repose of 
nature. To leave some little consolation to the lovers of white lead, 
we will add that there is one position in which their favoi'ite color 
may not only be tolerated, but often has a happy effect. We mean 
in the case of a country house or cottage, deeply imbowered in trees. 
Surrounded by such a mass of foliage as Spenser describes, 

" In whose enclosed shadow there was set 
A fair pavilion scarcely to be seen" 

a white building often has a magical effect. But a landscape painter 
would quickly answer, if he were asked the reason of this exception 
to the rule, " It is because the building does not appear white." In 
other words, in the shadow of the foliage by which it is half con- 
cealed, it loses all the harshness and offensiveness of a white house 
in an open site. We have, indeed, often felt, in looking at examples 
of the latter, set upon a bald hill, that the building itself would, if 
possible, cry out, 

" Hide me from day's garish eye." 

Having entered our protest against the general use of white in 
country edifices, we are bound to point out what we consider suit- 
able shades of color. 

We have said that one should look to nature for hints in color. 
This gives us, apparently, a wide choice of shades, but as we ought 
])roperly to employ modified shades, taken from the colors of the 
materials of which houses are constructed, the number of objects 
is brought within a moderate comjjass. Houses are not built 
of grass, or leaves, and there is, therefore, not much propriety in 



266 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

painting a dwelling green. Earth, stone, bricks, and wood, are the 
substances that enter mostly into the structure ot" our houses, and 
from these we would accordingly take suggestions for ])ainting 
them. 

Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was full of an artistical feeling for the 
union of a house with its surrounding scenery, once said, " If you 
would fix upon the best color for your house, turn up a stone, or 
pluck up a handful of grass by the roots, and see what is the color 
of the soil where the house is to stand, and let that be your choice." 
This rule was not probably intended to be exactly carried into gene- 
ral practice, but the feeling that prompted it was the same that we 
are endeavoring to illustrate — the necessity of a unity of color in 
the house and country about it. 

We think, in the beginning, that the color of all buildings in the 
countiy should be of those so/'< and quiet shades^ called neutral tints, 
such as fawn, drab, gray, brown, &:c., and that all postive colors, 
such as white, yellow, red, blue, black, &c., should always be avoided ; 
neutral tints being those drawn from nature, and harmonizing best 
with her, and positive colors being most discordant when introduced 
into rural scenery. 

In the second place, we would adapt the shade of color, as far 
as possible, to the expression, style, or character of the house itself. 
Thus, a large mansion may very properly receive a somewhat sober 
hue, expressive of dignity ; while a country house, of moderate size, 
demands a lighter and more pleasant, but still quiet tone ; and a 
small cottage should, we think, always have a cheerful and lively 
tint. Country houses, thickly surrounded by trees, should always 
be painted of a lighter shade than those standing exposed. And a 
new house, entirely unrelieved by foliage, as it is rendered conspicu- 
ous by the very nakedness of its position, should be painted several 
shades darker than the same building if placed in a well wooded 
site. In proportion as a house is exiMsed to vieiv, let its hue be 
darker, and where it is much concealed by foliage, a very Vujht shade 
of color is to be preferred. 

Wordsworth remarks, in speaking of houses in the Lake coun- 
try, that many persons who have heard white condemned, have erred 
by adopting a cold slaty color. The dulness and dimness of hue in 



ON THE COLOR OF COUNTRY HOUSES. 25*7 

some dai'k stones, produces an effect quite at variance with the 
cheerful expression which small houses should wear. " The flaring 
yellow," he adds, " runs into the opposite extreme, and is still more 
censurable. Upon the whole, the safest color, for general use, is 
something between a cream and a dust color. 

This color, which Wordsworth recommends for general use, is the 
hue of the English freestone, called Portland stone — a quiet faum 
color, to which we are strongly partial, and which harmonizes per- 
haps more completely with all situations in the country 'than any 
other that can be named. Next to this, we like a loarm gray^ that 
is, a drab mixed with a very little red and some yellow. Browns 
and dark grays are suitable for barns, stables, and outbuildings, 
which it is desirable to render inconspicuous — but for dwellings, un- 
less very light shades of these latter colors are used, they are apt to 
give a dull and heavy effect in the country.* 

A very slight admixture of a darker color is sufficient to remove 
the objections to white paint, by destroying the glare of lohite, the 
only color which reflects all the sun's rays. We would advise the I 
use of soft shades, not much removed from white, for small cottages, 
which should not be painted of too dark a shade, which would give 
them an asjiect of gloom in the place of glare. It is the more ne- ' 
cessary to make this suggestion, since we have lately observed that 
some persons newly awakened to the bad effect of white, have rush- 
ed into the opposite extreme, and colored their country houses of 
such a sombre hue that they give a melancholy character to the 
whole neighborhood around them. 

A species of monotony is also produced by using the same neu- 
tral tint for every part of the exterior of a country house. Now 
there are features, such as window facings, blinds, cornices, etc., 
which confer the same kind of expression on a house that the eyes, 
eyebrows, lips, &c. of a face, do upon the human countenance. To 

* It is very difficult to convey any proper idea of shades of color by 
words. In our " Cottage Residences," we have attempted to do so by a plate 
showing some of the tints. We would suggest to persons wishing to select 
accurately, shades for their painter to copy, to go into a stationer's and exa- 
iiiiiie a stock of tinted papers. A great variety of shades in agreeable neu- 
ti-al tints, will usually be found, and a selection once made, the color can be 
imitated without risk of failure. 

17 



258 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

paint the whole house plain drab, gives it very much the same dull 
and insipid effect that colorless features (white hair, pale eyebrows, 
lips, &G., &c.) do the face. A certain sprightliness is therefore al- 
ways bestowed on a dwelling in a neutral tint, by painting the 
bolder projecting features of a different shade. The simplest practi- 
cal rule that we can suggest for effecting this, in the most satisfac- 
tory and agreeable manner, is the following : Choose paint of some 
neutral tint that is quite satisfactory, and let the facings of the win- 
dows, cornices, &c., be painted several shades darker, of the same 
color. The blinds may either be a still darker shade than the fa- 
cings, or else the darkest green.* This variety of shades will give a 
building a cheerful effect, when, if but one of the shades were em- 
ployed, there would be a dulness and heaviness in the appearance 
of its exterior. Any one who will follow the principles we have 
suggested cannot, at least, fail to avoid the gross blunders in taste 
which most common house-painters and their employers have so long 
been in the habit of committing in the practice of painting country 
houses. 

Uvedale Price justly remarked, that many people have a sort of 
callus over their organs of light, as others over those of hearing ; 
and as the callous hearers feel nothing in music but kettle-drums 
and trombones, so the callous seers can only be moved by strong 
opposition of black and white, or by fiery reds. There are, we may 
add, many house-painters who appear to be equally benumbed to 
any delicate sensation in shades of color. They judge of the beauty 
of colors upon houses as they do in the raw pigment, and we verily 
believe would be more gratified to paint every thing chrome yellow, 
indigo blue, pure white, vermilion red,. and the like, than with the 
most fitting and delicate mingling of shades to be found under the 

* Thus, if the color of the house be that of Portland stone (a fawn shade), 
let the window casings, cornices, etc. be painted a light brown, the color of 
our common red freestone — and make the necessary shade by mixing the re- 
quisite quantity of brown with the color used in the body of tlie house. 
There is an excellent specimen of this effect in the exterior of the Delavan 
House, Albany. Very dark green is quite unobjectionable as a color for the 

( Venetian blinds, so much used in our country — as it is quite unobtrusive. 

i' Bright green is offensive to the eye, and vulgar and flashy in effect. 



ON THE COLOR OF COUNTRY HOUSES. 259 

wide canopy of heaven. Fortunately fashion, a more powerful 
teacher of the multitude than the press or the schools, is now setting 
in the right direction. A feAv men of taste and judgment, in. city 
and country, have set the example by casting off all connection with 
harsh colors. What a few leaders do at the first, from a nice sense 
of harmony in colors, the many will do afterwards, when they see 
the superior beauty of neutral tints, supported and enforced by the 
example of those who build and inhabit the most attractive and 
agreeable houses, and we trust, at no very distant time, one may have 
the pleasure of travelling over our whole country, without meeting 
with a single habitation of glaring and offensive color, but every 
where see something of harmony and beauty. 



IX. 



A SHORT CHAPTER ON COUNTRY CHURCHES. 

Januai-y, 1851. 

WHAT, among all the edifices that compose a country town or 
village, is that which the inhabitants should most love and 
reverence, — should most respect and admire among themselves, and 
should feel most pleasure in showing to a stranger ? 

We imagine the answer ready upon the lips of every one of 
our readers in the country, and rising at once to utterance, is — the 
Village Church. 

And yet, are our village churches winning and attractive in 
their exterior and interior ? Is one drawn to admire them at first 
sight, by the beauty of their proportions, the expression of holy 
purpose which they embody, the feeling of harmony with God and 
man, which they suggest ? Does one get to love the very stones 
of which they are composed, because they so completely belong 
to a building, which looks and is the home of Christian worship, 
and stands as the type of all that is firmest and deepest in our 
relis:ious faith and afi"ections ? 

Alas ! we fear there are very few country churches in our land 
that exert this kind of spell, — a spell which grows out of making 
stone, and brick, and timber, obey the will of the living soul, and 
express a religious sentiment. Most persons, most committees, se- 
lectmen, vestrymen, and congregations, who have to do with the 
building of churches, appear indeed wholly to ignore the fact, that 
the form and feature of a building may be made to express religious, 
civil, domestic, or a dozen other feelings, as distinctly as the form 



A SHORT CHAPTER ON COUNTRY CHURCHES. 261 

and features of the human face ; — and yet this is a fact as well 
known by all true architects, as that joy and sorrow, pleasure and 
pain, are capable of irradiating or darkening the countenance. Yes, 
and we do not say too much, when we addj^hat right expression 
in a building for religious purposes, has as much to do with awak- 
ening devotional feelings, and begetting an attachment in the heart, 
as the unmistakable signs of virtue and benevolence in our fellow- 
creatures, have in awakening kindred feeling in our own breasts. 

AVe do not, of course, mean to say, that a beautiful rural 
church will make all the population about it devotional, any more 
than that sunshine will banish all gloom ; but it is one of the in- 
fluences that prepare the way for religious feeling, and which we 
are as unwise to neglect, as we should be to abjure the world and 
bury ourselves like the ancient troglodytes, in caves and caverns. 

To speak out the truth boldly, would be to say that the ugliest 
church architecture in Christendom, is at this moment to be found 
in the country towns and villages of the United States. Doubtless, , 
the hatred which originally existed in the minds of our puritan an- 
cestors, against every thing that belonged to the Romish Church, in- 
cluding in one general sweep all beauty and all taste, along with 
all the superstitions and errors of what had become a corrupt 
system of religion, is a key to the bareness and baldness, and ab- 
sence of all that is lovely to the eye in the primitive churches of 
New England — which are for the most part the type-churches of 
all America. 

But, little by little, this ultra-puritanical spirit is wearing oflf. 
Men are not now so blinded by personal feeling against great spi- 
ritual wrongs, as to identify for ever, all that blessed boon of har- 
mony, grace, proportion, symmetry and expression, which make 
what we call Beauty, with the vices, either real or supposed, of any 
particular creed. In short, as a people, our eyes are opening to 
the perception of influences that are good, healthful, and elevating 
to the soul, in all ages, and all countries — and we separate the 
vices of men from the laws of order and beauty, by which the uni- 
verse is governed. 

The first step which we have taken to show our emancipation 
from puritanism in architecture, is that of building our churches 



262 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

with porticoes^ in a kind of shabby imitation of Greek temples. 
This has been the prevailing taste, if it is worthy of that name, 
of the Northern States, for the last fifteen or twenty years. 
The form of these chwrches is a parallelogram. A long row of 
windows, square or round-headed, and cut in two by a gallery on 
the inside ; a clumsy portico of Doric or Ionic columns in front, 
and a cupola upon the top, (usually stuck in the only place where 
a cupola should never be — that is, directly over the pediment or 
portico) — such are the chef cfoeuvres of ecclesiastical architecture, 
standing, in nine cases out of ten, as the rural churches of the 
country at large. 

Now, architecturally^ we ought not to consider these, churches 
at all. And by churches, we mean no narrow sectarian phrase — 
but a place where Christians worship God. Indeed, many of. the 
cx)ngregations seem to have felt this, and contented themselves with 
calling them " meeting-houses." If they would go a step farther, 
and turn them into town meeting-houses — or at least would, in fu- 
ture, only build such edifices for town meetings, or other civil pur- 
poses, then the building and its purpose would be in good keeping, 
one with the other. 

Not to appear presumptive and partial in our criticism, let us 
glance for a moment at the opposite purposes of the Grecian or 
classical, and the Gothic or pointed styles of architecture — as to 
what they really mean ; — for our readers must not suppose that all 
architects are men who merely put together certain pretty lines and 
ornaments, to produce an agreeable effect and please the popu- 
lar eye. 

In these two styles, which have so taken root that they are em- 
ployed at the present moment, all over Europe and America, there 
is something more than a mere conventional treatment of dooi-s and 
windows ; the application of columns in one case, and the introduc- 
tion of pointed arches in the other. In other words, there is an in- 
trinsic meaning or expression involved in each, Avhich, not to under- 
stand, or vaguely to understand, is to be working blindly, or striving 
after something in the dark. 

The leading idea of the Greek architecture, then, is in its hori- 
I ;aontal lines — the unbroken level of its cornice, which is the " level 



A SHORT CHAPTER ON COUNTRY CHURCHES. 263 

line of rationality." In this line, in the regular division of spaces, 
both of columns and windows, we find the elements of order, law, 
and human reason, fully and completely expressed. Hence, the fit- 
ness of classical architecture for the service of the state, for the town 
hall, the legislative assembly, the lecture room, for intellectual or 
scientific debate, and in short, for all civil purposes where the reason 
of man is supreme. So, on the other hand, the leading idea of 
Gothic architecture is found in its upward lines — its aspiring ten- 
dencies. No weight of long cornices, or flat ceilings, can keep it 
down ; upward, higher and higher, it soars, Hfting eveiy thing, even 
heavy, ponderous stones, poising them in the air in vaulted ceilings, 
or piling them upwards towards Heaven, in spires, and steeples, and 
towers, that, in the great cathedrals, almost seem to pierce the sky. 
It must be a dull soul that does not catch and feel something of this 
upward tendency in the vaulted aisles, and high, open, pointed roofs 
of the interior of a fine Gothic church, as well as its subdued and 
mellow light, and its suggestive and beautiful forms : forms, too, that 
are rendered more touching by their associations with Christian wor- 
ship in so many ages, not, like the Greek edifices, by associations 
with heathen devotees. 

Granting that the Gothic cathedral expresses, in its lofty, aspir- 
ing lines, the spirit of that true faith and devotion which leads us to 
look upward, is it possible, in the narrow compass of a village 
church which costs but a few hundred, or at most, a few thousand 
dollars, to preserve this idea ? 

We answer, yes. A drop of water is not the ocean, but it is still 
a type of the infinite ; and a few words of wisdom may not penetrate 
the understanding so deeply as a great volume by a master of the 
human heart, but they may work miracles, if fitly spoken. For it 
is not the magnitude of things that is the measure of their excellence 
and power; and there is space enough for the architect to awaken 
devotional feelings, and lead the soul upward, so far as material form 
can aid in doing this, though in a less degree, in the little chaptrl 
that is to hold a few hundred, as in the mighty minster where thou- 
sands may assemble. 

And the cost too, shall not be greater ; that is, if a substantial 
building is to be erected, and not a flimsy frame of boards and plas- 



264 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

ter. Indeed, we could quote numberless instances where the sums 
expended in classical buildings, of false pi-oportions but costly execu- 
tion,* wliicli can never raise other than emotions of pride in the hu~ 
man heart, would have built beautiful rural churches, which every 
inhabitant of the town where they chanced to stand, would remem- 
ber with feelings of respect and affection, to the end of all time. 

And in truth, we would not desire to make the country church 
other than simple, truthful, and harmonious. We would avoid all 
pretensions to elaborate architectural ornament ; we would depend 
upon the right proportions, forms, outlines, and the true expression. 
Above all, we would have the country church rural and expressive, 
by placing it in a spot of green lawn, surrounding it with our beau- 
tiful natural shade trees, and decorating its loalls (for no church 
built in any but the newest settlements, where means are utterly 
wanting, should be built of so perishable a material as wood) — with 
climbing plants — the ivy, or where that would not thrive, the Virginia 
creeper. And so we would make the country church, in its very 
forms and outlines, its walls and the vines that enwreath them, its 
shady green and the elms that overhang it, as well as in the lessons 
of goodness and j^iety that emanate from its pulpit, something to 
become a part of the affections, and touch and better the hearts of 
the whole country about it. 

* We have seen with pain, lately, one of those great temple churches 
erected in a country town on the Hudson, at a cost of $20,000. It looks 
outside and inside, no more like a church, than does the Custom House. 
And yet this sum would have built the most perfect of devotional edifices 
for that congregation. 



X. 



A CHAPTER ON SCHOOL-HOUSES. 

March, 1848. 

IF there is any one thing on which the usefuhiess, the true great- 
ness, and the permanence, of a free government dej^ends more 
than another, it is Education. 

Hence, it is not without satisfaction that we look upon our free 
schools, whose rudimentary education is afforded to so many at 
very small rates, or often entirely without charge. It is not without 
pleasure that we perceive new colleges springing up, as large cities 
multiply, and the population increases ; it is most gratifying to see, 
in the older portions of the country, men of wealth and intelligence 
founding new professorships, and bequeathing the best of legacies to 
their successors — the means of acquiring knowledge easily and 
cheaply. 

There is much to keep alive this train of thought, in the very 
means of acquiring education. The fertile invention of our age, 
and its teachers, seems to be especially devoted to removing all 
possible obstacles, and throwing all possible light on the once diffi- 
cidt and toilsome paths to the temple of science. Class-books, text- 
books, essays and treatises, written in clear terms, and illustrated 
with a more captivating style, rob learning of half is terrors to the 
beginner, and tairly allure those who do not come willingly into the 
charmed circle of educated minds. 

All this is truly excellent. This broad basis of education, which 
is laid in the hearts of our people, which the States publicly main- 
tain, which private munificence fosters, to which even men in for- 



2G6 RURAL ARCHITECTURE, 

eign lands delight to contribute, must be clierislied by every Ameri- 
can as the key-stone of his liberty ; it must be rendered still firmer 
and bi'oader, to meet the growing strength and the growing dangers 
of the country ; it must be adapted to the character of our people, — 
difterent and distinct as we believe that character to be from that 
of all other nations ; and, above all, without teaching creeds or doc- 
trines, it must be pervaded by profound and genuine moral feeling, 
more central, and more vital, than that of any narrow sectarianism. 

Well, will any of our readers believe that this train of thought 
has grown out of our having just seen a most shabby and forbid- 
ding-looking school-house ! Truly, yes ! and, as in an old picture 
of Rembrandt's, the stronger the lights, the darker also the shadows, 
we are obliged to confess that, with so much to be proud of in our 
system of common schools, there is nothing so beggarly and dis- 
graceful as the externals of our country school-houses themselves. 

A traveller through the Union, is at once sti'uck with the gen- 
eral appearance of comfort in the houses of our rural population. 
But, by the way-side, here and there, he observes a small, one story 
edifice, built of wood or stone in the most meagre mode, — dingy in 
aspect, and dilapidated in condition. It is placed in the barest 
and most forbidding site in the whole country round. If you fail 
to recognize it by these marks, you can easily make it out by the 
broken fences, and tumble-down stone walls that surround it ; by 
the absence of all trees, and by the general expression of melan- 
choly, as if every lover of good order and beauty in the neighbor- 
hood had abandoned it to the genius of desolation. 

This condition of things is almost universal. It must, therefore, 
be founded in some deep-rooted prejudices, or some mistaken idea 
of the importance of the subject. 

That the wretched condition of the country school-houses is ow- 
ing to a general license of what the phrenologists would call the 
organs of destructiveness in boys, we are well aware. But it is in 
giving this license that the great error of teachers and superintend- 
ents of schools lies. There is also, God be. thanked, a principle of 
order and a love of beauty implanted in every human mind ; and 
the degree to which it may be cultivated in children is quite un- 
known to those who start leaving such a principle wholly out of 



A CHAPTER ON SCHOOL-HOUSES. 267 

sight. To be convinced of this, it is only necessary to inquire, and 
it will be found that in the homes of many of the pupils of the for- 
lorn-looking school-house, the utmost propriety, order, and method 
reigns. Nay, even within the school-house itself, "heaven's first 
law " is obeyed, perhaps to the very letter. But to look at the ex- 
terior, it would appear that the " abbot of unreason," and not the 
"school-master," was "abroad." The truth seems to be simply this. 
The school-master does not himself appreciate the beautiful in rural 
objects ; and, content with doing what he conceives his duty to the 
heads of his pupils, while they are within the school-house, he 
abandons its externals to the juvenile " reign of terror." 

Nothing is so convincing on these subjects as example. We 
saw, last summer, in Dutchess County, New-York, a free school, 
erected to fulfil more perfectly the mission of an ordinary district 
school-house, which had been built by a gentleman, whose taste 
and benevolence seem, like sunshine, to warm and irradiate his 
whole neighborhood. It was a building simple enough, after all. 
A projecting roof, with slightly ornamented brackets, a pretty 
porch, neat chimney tops ; its color a soft neutral tint ; these were 
its leading features. But a single glance at it told, in a moment, 
that the evil spirit had been cast out, and the good spirit had taken 
its place. The i;tmost neatness and cleanliness appeared in every 
part. Beautiful vines and creepers climbed upon the walls, and 
hung in festoons over the windows. Groups of trees, and flowering 
shrubs, were thriving within its inclosure. A bit of neat lawn sur- 
rounded the building, and was evidently an object of care and re- 
spect with the pupils themselves. Altogether, it was a picture of a 
common district school which, compared with that we before de- 
scribed, and which one every day sees, was a foretaste of the mille- 
nium. If any stubborn pedagogue doubts it, let him come to us, 
and we will direct him on a pilgrimage to this Mecca, which is only 
eight miles from us. 

It appears to us that a gTeat error has taken deep root in the 
minds of most parents and teachers, regarding the influence of or- 
der and beauty on the youthful mind. Ah ! it is precisely at that 
age — in youth — when the heart is most sensitive, when the feelings 
are more keenly alive than at any other ; it is precisely at that age 



268 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

that the soul opens itself most to visions of beauty — that the least 
measure of harmony — the most simple notions of the graceful and 
symmetrical — fill it with joy. The few yards square, in which the 
child is permitted to realize his own vague ideal of a garden — does 
it not fill his heart more completely than the great Versailles of 
monarchs that of the mature man ? Do we not forever remember 
with what transport of delight we have first seen the grand old 
trees, the beautiful garden, the favorite landscape, from the hill-top 
of our childhood ? What after pictures, however grand — however 
magnificent — however perfect to the more educated eye, are ever 
able to efface these first daguerreotypes, printed on the fresh pages 
of the youthful soul ? 

It is rather because teachers misunderstand the nature of man, 
and more especially of boyhood, that we see so much to deplore in 
the exteriors of the houses in which they are taught. They forget, 
that in human natures there are not only intellects to acquire know- 
ledge, but also hearts to feel and senses to enjoy life. They forget 
that all culture is one-sided and short-sighted, which does not aim 
to develop human nature completely, fully. 

We have an ideal picture, that refreshes our imagination, of 
common school-houses, scattered all over our wide count! y ; not 
wild bedlams, which seem to the traveller plague-spots on the fair 
country landscape ; but little nests of verdure and beauty; embryo 
arcadias, that beget tastes for lovely gardens, neat houses, and well 
cultivated lands ; spots of recreation, that are play-grounds for the 
memory, for many long years after all else of childhood is crowded 
out and efiaced for ever. 

Let some of our readers who have an influence in this matter, 
try to work a little reform in their own districts. Suppose, in the first 
place, the school-house itself is rendered agreeable to the eye. Sup- 
pose a miniature park of elms and maples is planted about it. Sup- 
pose a strip of ground is set apart for little gardens, to be given as 
premiums to the successful pupils ; and which they are only to hold 
so long as both they and their gardens are kept up to the topmost 
standard. Suppose the trees are considered to be the property and 
under the protection of certain chiefs of the classes. And, suppose 




Plan of a School House 




A CHAPTER ON SCHOOL-HOUSES. 269 

that, besides all this little arrangement for the growth of a love of 
order and beauty in the youthful heart and mind, there is an ample 
play-ground provided for the expenditure of youthful activity ; where 
wild sports and gymnastics may be indulged to the utmost delight 
of their senses, and the utmost benefit of their constitutions. Is this 
Utopian ? Does any wise reader think it is not Avorthier of the cpn- 
sideration of the State, than fifty of the projects which will this year 
come before it ? 

For ourselves, we have perfect faith in the future. We believe 
in the millennium of schoolboys. And we believe that our country- 
men, as soon as they com^irehend fully the value and importance 
of external objects on the mind — on the heart — on the manners — 
on the life of all human beings — will not be slow to concentrate all 
beautiful, good, and ennobling influences around that primary nursery 
of the intellect and sensations — the district school. 

Thei'e is a strong illustration of our general acknowledgment of 
this influence of the beautiful, to be found, at the jiresent moment, 
in this country more than in any other. We allude to our Rural 
Cemeteries, and our Insane Asylums. It is somewhat curious, but 
not less true, that no country-seats, no parks or pleasure-gi'ounds, in 
America, are laid out with more care, adorned with more taste, filled 
with more lovely flowers, shrubs and trees, than some of our princi- 
pal cemeteries and asylums. Is it not sm'prising that only when 
touched with sorrow, we, as a people, most seek the gentle and re- 
fining influence of nature ? Ah ! many a man, whose life was hard 
and stony, reposes, after death, in those cemeteries, beneath a turf 
covered with violets and roses ; but for him, it is too late ! Many a 
fine intellect, overtasked and wrecked in the too ardent pursuit of 
power or wealth, is fondly courted back to reason, and more quiet 
joys, by the dusky, cool walks of the asylum, where peace and rural 
beauty do not refuse to dwell. But, alas, too often their mission is 
fruitless ! 

How much better, to distil these "gentle dews of heaven" into 
the young heart, to implant, even in the schoolboy days, a love of 
trees ; of flowers ; of gardens ; of the country ; of home ; — of all 
those pure and simple pleasures, which are, in the after life— ^ven 



270 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

if they exist only in the memory — a blessed panacea, amid the dry- 
ness and dustiness of so many of the paths of life — politics — com- 
merce — the professions — and all other busy, engrossing occupations, 
whose cares become, else, almost a fever in the veins of our ardent, 
enterprising people. 







Ornamental Tee House above Ground 




)rnamental Ice House alDOve Ground 



XL 



HOW TO BUILD ICE-HOUSES. 

December, 1846. 

T HE ICE-HOUSE and the hot-house, types of Lapland and the 
Tropics, are two contrivances which ci\aHzation has invented for 
the comfort or luxury of man. A native of the Sandwich Islands, 
who lives, as he conceives, in the most delicious climate in the world, 
and sleeps away the best part of his life in that happy state which 
the pleasure-loving Italians call " dolce far niente^'' (sweet do no- 
thing) — smiles and shudders when he hears of a region where his 
familiar trees must be kept in glass houses, and the water turns, now 
and then, into solid, cold crystal ! 

Yet, if happiness, as some philosophers have affirmed, consists 
in a variety of sensations, we denizens of temperate latitudes have 
greatJy the advantage of him. What surprise and pleasure awaits 
the Sandwich Islander, for example, like that we experience on en- 
tering a spacious hat-house, redolent of blossoms and of perfume, in 
mid-winter, or on refreshing our exhausted frames with one of " Thom- 
son and Weller's " vanilla creams, or that agreeable compound of 
the vintage of Xeres, pounded ice, etc., that bears the humble name 
of " sherry-cobbler ;" but which, having been introduced lately from 
this country into London, along with our " American ice," has sent 
into positive ecstasies all those of the great metropolis, who depend 
upon their throats for sensations. 

Our business at the present moment, is with the ice-house^ — as a 
necessary and most useful appendage to a country residence. Abroad, 
both the ice-house and the hot-house are portions of the wealthy 



272 



RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 



man's establishment solely. But in this country, the ice-house forms 
part of the comforts of every substantial farmer. It is not for the sake 
of ice-creams and cooling hquors, that it has its great value in his eyes, 
but as a means of preserving and keeping in the finest condition, 
during the summer, his meat, his butter, his delicate fruit, and, in 
short, his whole perishable stock of provisions. Half a dozen cor- 
respondents, lately, have asked us for some advice on the construc- 
tion of an ice-house, and we now cheerfully ofl:er all the informa- 
tion in our possession. 

To build an ice-house in sandy or gravelly soils, is one of the 
easiest things in the world. The drainage there is perfect, the dry and 
porous soil is of itself a sufficiently good non<onductor. All that it 
is necessary to do, is to 
dig a pit, twelve feet 
square, and as many 
deep, line it with logs 
or joists faced with 
boards, cover it with a 
simple roof on a level 
with the ground, and 
fill it with ice. Such 
ice-houses, built with 
trifling cost, and en- 
tirely answering the 
purpose of aff"ording 
ample supply for a 
large family, are com- 
mon in -\arious parts of the country. 

But it often happens that one's residence is upon a strong loamy 
or clayey soil, based upon clay or slate, or, at least, rocky in its sub- 
stratum. Such a soil is retentive of moisture, and even though it 
be well drained, the common ice-house, just described, will not pre- 
serve ice half through the summer in a locality of that kind. The 
clayey or rocky soil is always damp — it is always an excellent con- 
ductor, and the ice melts in it in spite of all the usual precautions. 

Something more than the common ice-house is therefore needed 




The common Ice-house below ground. 



HOW TO BUILD ICE-HOUSES. 



273 



in all such soils. "How shall it be built ? " is the question which has 
been frequently put to us lately. 

To enable us to answer this question in the most satisfactory 
manner, we addressed ourselves to Mr. N. J. Wyeth of Cambridge, 
Mass., whose practical information on this subject is probably fuller 
and more complete than that of any other person in the country, 
he, for many years, having had the construction and management 
of the enormous commercial ice-houses, near Boston — the largest 
and most perfect known.* 

We desired Mr. Wyeth's hints for building an ice-house for 
family use, both above ground and below ground. 

In the beginning we should remai-k that the great ice-houses of 
our ice companies are usually built above ground ; and Mr. Wyeth 

in his letter to us re- 
marks, "we now never 
build or tise an ice- 
house under ground ; 
it never preserves ice 
as well as those built 
above ground, and 
costs much more. I, 
however, send you di- 
rections for the con- 
struction of both 
kinds, with slight 
sketches in explana- 
tion." The following 
are Mr. Wyeth's di- 
rections for building : 
" Isf. An ice-house 
^E above ground. An ice- 
house above ground 

Fig 4. Section of the Ice-house above ground. sliOuld be built Upon 




* Few of oui- readers are aware of the magnitude which the business of 
supplying foreign countries with ice has attained in New England. Millions 
of dollars worth have been shipped from the port of Boston alone, within 
18 



274 



RURAL ARCHITECTURE, 



the plan of having a double partition, with the hollow space be- 
tween filled with some non-conducting substance. 

" In the first place, the frame of the sides should be formed of 

two ranges of upi-ight joists, 6 by 4 inches ; the lower ends of the 

joists should be put into the ground without any sill, which is apt 

to let air pass through. These two ranges of joists should be about 

^ -^ ^ >^ two feet and one-half 

f- '^^;^^^-^;^:^;A^>^^ , J....^.. J.,^, . apart at the bottom, 

- "^:j"^^v^i">^'-i^^'i-Vv^ find two feet deep at 

r.,.- ;';.; -;- f-:^v::-;^- •;:x;v^ the top. At the top 

X,-_' . ' - Vi:r'^^'-^^v^v^S^5^'^^-'sS^i^;^^ these joists should be 

7^y/7/zvy.vy'y^ ^■yA^iiy^^^^iCCii^i^^ mortised into the 

"^ ^ ^ t^ ^ cross-beams, which are 

Fig. 5. Manner of nailing the boards to the joists. ^^ support the Upper 

floor. The joists in the two ranges should be placed each opposite 
another. They should then be lined or faced on one side, with 
rough boarding, which need not be very tight. This boarding 
should be nailed to those edges of the joists nearest each other, so 
that one range of joists shall be outside the building, and the other 
inside the ice-room or vault. (Fig. 5.) 

" The space between these boardings or partitions should be filled 
with wet tan, or sawdust, whichever is cheapest or most easily ob- 
tained. The reason for using wet material for filling this space is 
that during winter it freezes, and until it is again thawed, little or 
no ice will melt at the sides of the vault. 

" The bottom of the ice vault should be filled about a foot deep with 
small blocks of wood ; these are levelled and covered with wood shav- 
ings, over which a strong plank floor should be laid to receive the ice. 

the last eight years ; and the East and West Indies, China, England, and the 
South, are constantly supplied with ice from that neighborhood. Wenham 
Lake is now as well known in London for its ice, as Westphalia for its hams. 
This enterprise owes its success mainly to the energy of Frederick Tudor, Esq., 
of Boston. The ice-houses of this gentleman, built, we believe, chiefly by 
Mr. Wyeth, are on a more gigantic scale than any others in the world. An 
extra whole year's supply is laid up in advance, to guard against the acci- 
dent of a mild winter, and a railroad several miles in length, built expressly 
for the })urpo3e, conveys the ice to the ships lying in the harbor. 



HOW TO BUILD ICE-UOUSES. . 2Y5 

" Upon the beams abo\e the vault, a pretty tight floor should 
also be laid, and this floor should be covered several inches deep 
with dry tan or sawdust. The roof of the ice-house should have 
considerable pitch, and the space between the upper floor and the 
roof should be ventilated by a lattice window at each gable end or 
something equivalent, to pass out the warm air which will accumu- 
late beneath the roof. A door must be provided in the side of the 
vault to fill and discharge it ; but it should always be closed u-p higher 
than the ice, and when not in use should be kept closed altogether. 

" 2d. An Ice-house below ground. This is only thoroughly made 
by building up the sides of the pit with a good brick or stone wall, lain 
in mortar. Inside of this wall set joists, and build a light wooden par- 
tition against which to place the ice. A good floor should be laid 
over the vault as just described, and this should also be covered with 
dry tan or sawdust. In this floor the door must be cut to give ac- 
cess to the ice. 

" As regards the bottom of the vault, the floor, the lattice win- 
dows in the gables for ventilation, etc., the same remarks will apply 
that have just been given for the ice-house above ground, with the 
addition that in one of the gables^ in this case, must be the door for 
filling the house with ice. 

" If the ground where ice-houses of either kind are built, is not 
porous enough to let the melted ice dram away, then there should 
be a waste pipe to carry it oft", which should be slightly bent, so as 
always to retain enough water in it to prevent the passage of air up- 
wards into the ice-house." 

These plain and concise *hints by Mr. Wyeth, will enable our 
readers, who have failed in building ice-houses in the common way, 
to remedy their defects, or to construct new ones on the improved 
plan just given. The main points, it will be seen, are, to place a 
sufiicient non-conducting medium of tan or sawdust, if above ground, 
or of wall and wood partition, if below gi-ound, to prevent the action 
of the air, or the damp soil, on the body of ice inclosed in the vault. 

Mr. Wyeth has not told us how large the dimensioijs of an ice- 
house built in either of these modes should be to provide for the 
use of an ordinary family through a season ; but we will add as to 
this point, that a cube of twelve or fourteen feet- — that is, a house 



276 



RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 




the vault of which will measure about twelve to fourteen feet " in 
the clear," every way, will be quite large enough, if properly con- 
structed. An ice-house, the vault of which is a cube of twelve feet, 
will hold about fifty tons of ice. One of this size, near Boston, filled 
last January, is still half full of ice, after supplying the wants of a 
family all the season. 

In the ice-house above 
ground, tlie opening being 
in the side, it will be best 
to have a double door, one 
in each partition, opposite 
each other. The outer one 
may be entire, but the in- 
ner one should be in two 
or three parts. The upper 
part may be opened first, 
so that only so much of 
the ice may be expgsed at 
once, as is necessary to 
reach the topmost layers. 

An ice-house below 
ground is so inconspicuous 
on object, that it is easily 
kept out of sight, and little 
or no regard may be paid to its exterior appearance. On the con- 
trary, an ice-house above ground is a building of sufficient size to 
attract the eye, and in many country residences, therefore, it will be 
desirable to give its exterior a neat or tasteful air. 

It will frequently be found, however, that an ice-house above 
ground may be very conveniently constructed under the same roof 
as the wood-house, tool-house, or some other necessary out-building, 
following all the necessary details just laid down, and continuing 
one roof and the same kind of exterior over the whole building. 

In places of a more ornamental character, where it is desirable 
to place the elevated ice-house at no great distance from the dwell- 
ing, it should, of course, take something of an ornamental or pictu- 
resque character. 



Fig. 6. Double Door of the Ice-house. 



HOW TO BUILD ICE-IIOUSES. 277 

In figures 1 and 2, are shown two designs for ice-houses above 
ground, in picturesque styles. Figure 1 is built in a circular form, 
and the roof neatly thatched. The outside of this ice-house is 
roughly weather-boarded, and then ornamented with rustic work, 
or covered with strips of bark neatly nailed on in panels or devices. 
Two small gables with blinds ventilate the space under the roof. 

Fig. 2 is a square ice-house, with a roof projecting three or four 
feet, and covered with shingles, the lower ends of which are cut so 
as to form diamond patterns when laid on the roof Tlie rustic 
brackets which support this roof, and the rustic columns of the other 
design, will be rendered more durable by stripping the bark off, and 
thoroughly painting them some neutral or wood tint.* 

* The projecting roof will assist in keeping the building cool. In filling 
the house, back up the wagon loaded with ice, and slide the squares of ice 
to their places on a plank serving as an inclined plane. 



xn. 

THE FAVORITE POISON OF AMERICA. 

November, 1850. 

ONE of the most complete and salutary reforms over, perhaps, 
made in any country, is the temperance reform of the last fif- 
teen years in the United States. Every body, familiar with our man- 
ners and customs fifteen or twenty years ago, very well knows that 
though our people were never positively intemperate, yet ardent 
spirits were, at that time, in almost as constant daily use, both in 
public and private life, as tea and coffee are now ; while at the pres- 
ent moment, they are seldom or never offered as a means of civility 
or refreshment — at least in the older States. The result of this 
higher civilization or temperance, as one may please to call it, is that 
a large amount of vice and crime have disappeared from amidst the 
laboring classes, while the physical as well as moral condition of 
those who labor too little to be able to bear intoxicating drinks, is 
very much improved. 

We have taken this consolatory glance at this great and saluta- 
ry reform of the habits of a whole country, because we need some- 
thing to fortify our faith in tlie possibility of new refoi-ms ; for our 
countrymen have, within the last ten yeai's, discovered a new ])oison, 
which is used wholesale, both in public and private, all over the 
country, till the national health and constitution are absolutely im- 
paired by it. 

" A national poison ? Do you mean slavery, socialism, abolition, 
mormonism ? " Nothing of the sort. " Then, perhaps, tobacco, 
patent medicines, or coffee ?" Worse than these. It is a foe more 



THE FAVORITE POISON OF AMERICA. 279 

insidious than these ; for, at least, one very well knows what one is 
about when he takes copious draughts of such things. Whatever 
his own convictions may be, he knows that some of his fellow crea- 
tures consider them deleterious. 

But the national poison is not thought dangerous. Far from it. 
On the contrary, it is made almost synonymous with domestic com- 
fort. Old and young, rich and poor, drink it in with avidity, and 
without shame. The most tender and delicate women and children 
are fondest of it, and become so accustomed to it, that they gradu- 
ally abandon the delights of bright sunshine, and the pure air of 
heaven, to take it in large draughts. What matter if their cheeks 
become as pale as the ghosts of Ossian ; if their spirits forsake them, 
and they become listless and languid ! Are they not well housed 
and comfortable? Are not their lives virtuous, and their aflfairs 
prosperous ? Alas, yes ! But they are not the less guilty of poison- 
ing themselves daily, though perhaps unconscious of it all the 
time. 

The national poison that we allude to, is nothing less than the 
vitiated air of close stoves, and the unventilated apartments which 
accompany them ! 

" Stoves " — exclaim a thousand readers in the same breath — 
" stoves poisonous ? Nonsense ! they are perfectly healthy, as well 
as the most economical, convenient, labor-saving, useful, and indis- 
pensable things in the world. Besides, are they not real Yankee 
inventions ? In what country but this is there such an endless va- 
riety of stoves — cooking stoves, hall stoves, parlor stoves, air-tight 
stoves, cylinders, salamanders, etc. ? Why, it is absolutely the na- 
tional invention — this stove — the most useful result of universal 
Yankee ingenuity." 

We grant it all, good friends and readers ; but must also have 
our opinion — our calmly considered and carefully matured opinion — 
which is nothing more nor less than this, that stoves — as now used 
— are the national curse ; the secret poisoners of that blessed air, 
bestowed by kind Providence as an elixir of life, — giving us new- 
vigor and fresh energy at every inspiration ; and we, ungrateful 
beings, as if the pure breath of heaven were not fit for us, we reject 
it, and breathe instead — what ? — the air which passes over a surface 



280 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

of hot iron, and becomes loaded with all the vapor of arsenic and 
sulphur, which that metal, highly heated, constantly gives off ! 

If in the heart of large cities — where there is a large population 
crowded together, with scanty means of subsistence — one saw a few 
persons driven by necessity into warming their small apartments by 
little close stoves of iron, liable to be heated red-hot, and thereby to 
absolutely destroy the purity of the air, one would not be so much 
astonished at the result, because it is so difficult to preserve the poor- 
est class from suffering, in some way or other, in great cities. But 
it is by no means only in the houses of those who have slender 
means of subsistence, that this is the case. It is safe to say that 
nine-tenths of all the houses in the northern States, whether belong- 
ing to rich or poor, are entirely unventilated, and heated at the pres- 
ent moment by close stoves ! 

It is absolutely a matter of preference on the part of thousands, 
with whom the trilling difference between one mode of heating and 
another is of no account. Even in the midst of the country, where 
there is still wood in abundance, the farmer will sell that wood and 
buy coal, so that he may have a little demon — alias a black, cheer- 
less close stove — in the place of that genuine, hospitable, wholesome 
friend and comforter, an open wood fireplace. 

And in order not to leave one unconverted soul in the wilder- 
ness, the stove inventors have lately brought out "a new article," for 
forest countries, where coal is not to be had either for love or barter — an 
" air-tight stove for burning wood." The seductive, convenient, mon- 
strous thing ! " It consumes one-fifth of the fuel which was needed 
by the open chimney — is so neat and clean, makes no dust, and 
gives no trouble." All quite true, dear, considerate housewife — all 
quite true ; but that very stove causes your husband to pay twice 
its savings to the family doctor before two winters are past, and gives 
you thrice as much trouble in nursing the sick in your family, as 
you formerly spent in taking care of the fire in your chimney cor- 
ner, — besides deprinng you of the most delightful of all household 
occupations. 

Our countrymen generally have a vast deal of national pride, 
and national sensitiveness, and we honor them for it. It is the warp 
and woof, out of which the stuff of national impro^x-ment is woven, 



THE FAVORITE POISON OF AMERICA. 281 

When a nation has become quite indiiferent as to what it has done, 
or can do, then there is nothing left but for its proj^hets to utter La- 
mentations over it. 

Now there is a curious but indisputable fact (somebody must say 
it), touching our present condition and appearance, as a nation of 
men, women and children, in which we Americans compare most 
unfavorably with the people of Europe, and especially with those 
of northei-n Europ^ — England and France, for example. It is 
neither in religion or morality, law or liberty. In these great essen- 
tials, every American feels that his country is the birthplace of a 
larger number of robust and healthy souls than any other. But in 
the bodily condition, the signs of physical health, and all that con- 
stitutes the outward aspect of the men and women of the United 
States, our countrymen, and especially countrywomen, compare most 
unfavorably with all but the absolutely starving classes, on the othej- 
side of the Atlantic. So completely is this the fact, that, though 
we are unconscious of it at home, the first thing (especially of late 
yeai-s) which strikes an American, returning from abroad, is the pale 
and sickly countenances of his friends, acquaintances, and almost 
every one he meets in the streets of large towns, — every other man 
looking as if he had lately recovered from a fit of illness. The men 
look so pale and the women so delicate, that his eye, accustomed to 
the higher hues of health, and the more vigorous physical condition 
of transatlantic men and Avonien, scarcely credits the assertion of 
old acquaintances, w'hen they assui-e him that they were " never 
better in their lives." 

With this sort of impression weighing disagreeably on our mind, 
on returning from Europe lately, we fancied it worth our while to 
plunge two hundred or three hundred miles into the interior of the 
State of New- York. It would be pleasant, we thought, to see, not 
only the rich forest scenery opened by the new railroad to Lake 
Erie, but also (for we felt confident they were there) some good, 
hearty, fresh-looking lads and lasses among the farmers' sons and 
daughters. 

We were for the most part disappointed. Certainly the men, 
especially the young men, who live mostly in the open air, are heal- 
thy and robust. But the daughters of the farmers — they are as 



282 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

delicate and pale as lilies of the valley, or fine ladies of the Fifth 
Avenue. If one catches a glimpse of a rose in their cheeks, it is 
the pale rose of the hot-house, and not the fresh glow of the garden 
damask. Alas, we soon discovered the reason. They, too, live for 
seven months of the year in unventilated rooms, heated by close 
stoves ! The fireplaces are closed up, and ruddy complexions have 
vanished with them. Occasionally, indeed, one meets with an ex- 
ception ; some bright-eyed, young, rustic Hebe, whose rosy cheeks 
and round, elastic figure would make you believe that the world has 
not all grown " delicate ; " and if you inquire, you will learn, proba- 
bly, that she is one of those whose natural spirits force them out 
continually, in the open air, so that she has, as yet, in that way 
escaped any considerable doses of the national poison. 

Now that we are fairly afloat on this dangerous sea, Ave must 
unburthen our heart sufficiently to say, that neither in England nor 
France does one meet with so much beauty — certainly not, so far as 
charming eyes and expressive faces go towards constituting beauty 
— as in America. But alas, on the other hand, as compared with 
the elastic figures and healthful frames abroad, American beauty is as 
evanescent as a dissolving view, contrasting with a real and living 
landscape. What is with us a sweet dream, from sixteen to twenty- 
five, is there a permanent reality till forty-five or fifty. 

We should think it might be a matter of climate, were it not 
that we saw, as the most common thing, even finer complexions 
in France — yes, in the heart of Paris, and especially among the 
peasantry, who are almost wholly in the open air — than in England. 

And what, then, is the mystery of fine physical health, w^hich 
is so much better understood in the old world than the new ? 

The first transatlantic secret of health, is a much longer time 
passed daily in the open air, by all classes of people ; the second, the 
better modes of heating and ventilating the rooms in which they live.' 

Regular daily exercise in the open air, both as a duty and a 
pleasure, is something looked upon in a very different light on the 
two different sides of the Atlantic. On this side of the water, if a 
person — say a professional man, or a merchant — is seen regularly 
devoting a certain portion of the day to exercise, and the preserva- 
tion of his bodily powers, he is looked upon as a valetudinarian, — 



THE FAVORITE POISON OF AMERICA. 283 

an invalid, who is obliged to take care of himself, poor soul ! and 
his friends daily meet him with sympathizing looks, hoping he " feels 
better," etc. As for ladies, if there is not some object in taking a 
walk, they look upon it as the most stupid and unmeaning thing 
in the world. 

On the other side of the water, a person who should neglect the 
pleasure of breathing the free air for a couple of hours, daily, or 
should shun the duty of exercise, is suspected of slight lunacy ; and 
ladies who should prefer continually to devote their leisure to the 
solace of luxurious cushions, rather than an exhilarating ride or walk, 
are thought a little tete monMe. What, in short, is looked upon as 
a virtue there, is only regarded as a matter of fancy here. Hence, 
an American generally shivers, in an air that is only grateful and 
bracing to an Englishman, and looks blue in Paris, in weather when 
the Parisians sit with the casement windows of their saloons wide 
open. Yet it is, undoubtedly, all a matter of habit ; and we Yan- 
kees, (we mean those of us not forced to " rough it,") with the tough- 
est natural constitutions in the world, nurse ourselves, as a people, 
into the least robust and most susceptible j^hysiques in existence. 

So much for the habit of exercise in the open air. Now let us 
look at our mode of warming and ventilating our dwellings ; for it 
is here that the national poison is engendered, and here that the 
ghostly expression is begotten. 

However healthy a person may be, he can neither look healthy 
nor remain in sound health long, if he is in the habit of breathing 
impure air. As sound health depends upon pure blood, and there 
can be no pure blood in one's veins if it is not repurified continual- 
ly by the action of pure air upon it, through the agency of the 
lungs (the whole purpose of breathing being to purify and vitalize 
the blood ), it follows, that if a nation of people ivill, from choice, 
live in badly ventilated rooms, full of impure air, they must become 
pale and sallow in complexions. It may not largely affect the 
health of the 'inen, who are more or less called into the open air by 
their avocations, but the health of women {ergo the constitutions of 
children), and all those who are confined to rooms or offices heated 
ni this way, must gradually give way under the influence of the 
poison. Hence, the delicacy of thousands and tens of thousands 
of the sex in America. 



284 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

" And how can you satisfy me," asks some blind lover of stoves, 
" that the air of a room heated by a close stove is deleterious ? " 
Very easily indeed, if you will listen to a few words of reason. 

It is well established that a healthy man must have about a pint of 
air at a breath ; that he breathes above a thousand times in an hour ; 
and that, as a matter beyond dispute, he requires about fiflij-seven 
hogsheads of air in twenty four hours. 

Besides this, it is equally well settled, that as common air con- 
sists of a mixture of two gases, one healthy (oxygen), and the other 
unhealthy (nitrogen), the air we have once breathed, having, by 
passing through the lungs, been deprived of the most healthful 
gas, is little less than unmixed poison (nitrogen). 

Now, a room warmed by an open fireplace or grate, is neces- 
sarily moi'e or less ventilated, by the very j^rocess of combustion 
going on ; because, as a good deal of the air of the room goes up 
the chimney, besides the smoke and vapor of the fire, a corresponding 
amount of fresh air comes in at the windows and door crevices to 
supply its place. The room, in other words, is tolerably well sujj- 
plied with fresh air for breathing. 

But let us take the case of a room heated by a close stove. The 
chimney is stopped up, to begin with. The room is shut u]). The 
windows are made pretty tight to keep out the cold ; and as there is 
very little air carried out of the room by the stove-pipe, (the stove is 
perhaps on the air-tight principle, — that is, it requires the minimum 
amount of air,) there is little fresh air coming in through the cre- 
vices to supply any vacuum. Suppose the room holds 300 hogs- 
heads of air. If a single person requires 57 hogsheads of fresh 
air per day, it would last four persons but about ' twenty-four hours, 
and the stove would require half as much more. But, as a man 
renders noxious as much again air as he expires fi-om his lungs, it 
actually happens that in four or five liours all the air in this room 
has been either breathed over, or is so mixed with the impure air 
which has been breathed over, that it is all thoroughly poisoned, 
and unfit for healthful respiration. A person with his senses un- 
blunted, has only to go into an ordinary unventilated room, heated 
by a stove, to perceive at once, by the effect on the lungs, Jiow dead, 
stifled, and destitute of all elasticitv the air is. 



THE FAVORITE POISON OF AMERICA. 285 

And this is the air wliicli four-fifths of our countrymen and 
countrywomen breathe in tlieir homes, — not fi-ora necessity, but 
from choice.* 

This is the air which those who travel by hundreds of thousands 
in our raih-oad cars, closed up in winter, and heated with close 
stoves, breathe for hours — or often entire daj^s.f 

This is the air which fills the cabins of closely packed steam- 
boats, always heated by lai-ge stoves, and only half ventilated ; the 
air breathed by countless numbers — both waking or sleeping. 

This is the air — no, this is even salubrious compared with the 
air — that is breathed by hundreds and thousands in almost all our 
crowded lecture-rooms, concert-rooms, public halls, and private as- 
semblies, all over the country. They ai-e nearly all heated by stoves 
or furnaces, with very imperfect ventilation, or no ventilation at all. 

Is it too much to call it the national poison, this continual at- 
mosphere of close stoves, which, whether travelling or at home, we 
Americans are content to breathe, as if it were the air of Par- 
adise ? 

We very well know that we have a great many readers who 
abominate stoves, and whose houses are warmed and ventilated in 
an excellent manner. But they constitute no appreciable fraction 
of the vast portion of our countrymen who love stoves — fill their 
houses with them — are ignorant of their evils, and think ventilation 
and fresh air physiological chimeras, which may be left to the 
speculations of doctors and learned men. 

* We have said that the present generation of stove-reared farmers' 
daughters are pale and delicate in appearance. We may add that the most 
healthy and blooming looking American women, are those of certain fami- 
lies where exercise, and fresh air, and ventilation, are matters of conscience 
and duty here as in Europe. 

f Why the ingenuity of clever Yankees has not been directed to warm- 
ing railroad cars (by means of steam conveyed through metal tubes, running 
und^er the floor, and connected with flexible coupling pipes,) we cannot well 
understand. It would be at once cheaper than the present mode, (since 
waste steam could be used,) and far more wholesome. Railroad cars have, 
it is true, ventilators at the top for the escape of foul air, but no apertures 
in the floor for the inlet of fresh air! It is like emptying a bai-rel without 
a vent 



286 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

And so, every otlier face that one meets in America, has a 
ghostly paleness about it, that would make a European stare.* 

What is to be done ? " Americans will have stoves." They 
suit the country, especially the new country ; they are cheap, labor- 
saving, clean. If the more enlighteJied and better informed throw 
them aside, the great bulk of the people will not. Stoves are, we 
are told, in short, essentially democratic and national. 

We answer, let us ventilate our rooms, and learn to live more in 
the open air. If our countrymen will take poison in, with every 
breath which they inhale in their houses and all theil' public gather- 
ings, let them dilute it lai'gely, and they may escape from a part at 
least of the evils of taking it in such strong doses. 

We have not space here to show in detail the best modes of ven- 
tilating now in use. But they may be found described in several 
works, especially devoted to the subject, published lately. In our 
volume on Country Houses, we have briefly shown, not only the 
principles of warming rooms, but the most simple and complete 
modes of ventilation, — from Arnott's chimney valve, which may 
for a small cost be easily placed in the chimney flue of any room, 
to Emerson's more complete apparatus, by which the largest apart- 
ments, or every room in the largest house, may be warmed and 
ventilated at the same time, in the most complete and satisfactory 
manner. 

We assure our readers that we are the more in earnest upon 
this subject, because they are so apathetic. As they would shake 
a man about falling into that state of delightful numbness which 
precedes freezing to death, all the more vigorously in proportion to 
his own indifference and unconsciousness to his sad state, so we are 
the more emphatic in what we have said, because we see the na- 
tional poison begins to work, and the nation is insensible. 

Pale countrymen and countrywomen, rouse yourselves ! Con- 
sider that God has given us an atmosphere of pure, salubrious, 
health-giving air, 45 miles high, and — ventilate your houses. 

* We ought not, perhaps, to include the Germans and Russians. They 
also love stoves, and the poison of bad air indoors, and therefore have not 
the look of health of other European nations, though they live far more in 
the open air than we do. 



TREES. 



T E E E S. 



THE BEAUTIFUL IN A TREE. 

February, 1851. 

IN what does the beauty of a tree consist ? We mean, of course, 
what may strictly be called an ornamental tree — not a tree 
planted for its fruit in the orchard, or growing for timber in the 
forest, but standing alone in the lawn or meadow — growing in 
groups in the pleasure-ground, overarching the roadside, or border- 
ing some stately avenue. 

Is it not, first of all, that such a tree, standing where it can grow 
untouched, and develop itself on all sides, is one of the finest pictures 
of symmetry and proportion that the eye can any where meet with ? 
The tree may be young, or it may be old, but if left to nature, it is 
sure 40 grow into some form that courts the eye and satisfies it. It 
may branch out boldly and grandly, like the oak ; its top may be broad 
and stately, like the chestnut, or drooping and elegant, like the elto, 
or delicate and airy like the birch, but it is sure to grow into the type 
form — either beautiful or picturesque — that nature stamped upon its 
species, and which is the highest beauty that such tree can possess. 
It is true, that nature plants some trees, like the fir and pine, in the 
fissures of the rock, and on the edge of the precipice ; that she twists 
their boughs and gnarls their stems, by storms and tempests — there-, 
by adding to their picturesque power in sublime and grand scenery ; 
but as a general truth, it may be clearly stated that the Beautiful^ in 
19 



290 TREES. 

a tree of any kind, is never so fully developed as when, in a genial 
soil and climate, it stands quite alone, stretching its boughs upward 
freely to the sky, and outward to the breeze, and even downward 
towards the earth — almost touching it with their graceful sweep, till 
only a glimpse of the fine trunk is had at its spreading base, and 
the whole top is one great globe of floating, wa\ang, drooping, or 
sturdy luxuriance, giving one as perfect an idea of symmetry and 
proi^ortion, as can be found short of the Grecian Apollo itself. 

We have taken the pains to j^resent this beau-ideal of a fine or- 
namental tree to our readers, in order to contrast it with another pic- 
ture, not from nature — but by the hands of quite another master. 

This master is the man whose passion is to prune trees. To his 
mind, there is nothing comparable to the satisfaction of trimming a 
tree. A tree in a state of nature is a no more respectable object than 
an untamed savage. It is running to waste with leaves and bran- 
ches, and has none of the look of civilization about it. Only let him 
use his saw for a short time, upon any young specimen just growing 
into adolescence, and throwing out its delicate branches like a fine 
fall of drapery, to conceal its naked trunk, and you shall see how 
he will improve its appearance. Yes, he will trim up those branches 
till there is a tall, naked stem, higher than his head. That shows 
that the tree has been taken care of — has been trimmed — ergo, 
trained and educated into a look of respectability. This is his great 
point — the fundamental law of sylvan beauty in his mind — a bare 
pole with a top of foliage at the end of it. If he cannot do this, 
he may content himself with thinning out the branches to let in the 
light, or clipping them at the ends to send the head upwards, or 
cutting out the leader to make it spread laterally. But though the 
trees formed by these latter modes of pruning, are well enough, 
they never reach that exalted standard, which has for its type, a pole 
as bare as a ship's mast, with only a flying studding-sail of green 
boughs at the end of it.* 

We suppose this very common pleasure — ^for it must be a 
pleasure — which so many persons find in. trimming up ornamental 

* Some of our readers may not be aware that to cut off the side branches 
on a young trunk, actually lessens the growth in diameter of that trunk at 
once. 



THE BEAUTIFUL IN A TREE. 291 

trees, is based on a feeling that trees, growing quite in the natural 
way, must be capable of some amelioration by art ; and as pruning 
is usually acknowledged to be useful in developing certain points in 
a fruit tree, a like good purpose will be reached by the use of the 
knife upon an ornamental tree. But the comparison does not hold 
good — since the objects aimed at are essentially different. Pruning 
— at least all useful pruning — as applied to fruit trees, is applied for 
the purpose of adding to, diminishing, or otherwise regulating the 
fruitfulness of the tree ; and this, in many cases, is effected at the 
acknowledged diminution of the growth, luxuriance and beauty of 
the trees-so far as spread of branches and prodigality of foliage go. 
But even here, the pruner who prunes only for the sake of using the 
knife (like heartless young surgeons in hospitals), not unfrequently 
goes too far, injures the perfect maturity of the crop, and hastens the 
decline of the tree, by depriving it of the fair proportions which na- 
ture has established between the leaf and the fruit. 

But for the most part, we imagine that the practice we complain 
of is a want of perception of "what is truly beautiful in an ornamen- 
tal tree. It seems to us indisputable, that no one who has any per- 
ception of the beautiful in nature, could ever doubt for a moment, 
that a fine single elm or oak, such as we may find in the valley of 
the Connecticut or the Genesee, which has never been touched by 
the knife, is the most perfect standard of sylvan gi'ace, symmetry, 
dignity, and finely balanced proportions, that it is possible to con- 
ceive. One would no more wish to touch it with saw or axe (unless 
to remove some branch that has fallen into decay), than to give a 
nicer curve to the rainbow, or add freshness to the dew-drop. If any 
of our readers, who still stand by the pruning-knife, will only give 
themselves up to the study of such trees as these — trees that have 
the most completely developed forms that nature stamps upon the 
species, they are certain to arrive at the same conclusions. For the 
beautiful in nature, though not alilie visible to every man, never 
i'jiils to dawn, sooner or later, upon all who seek her in the right 
: pirit. 

And in art too — no great master of landscape, no Claude, or 
Poussin, or Turner, paints mutilated trees ; but trees of grand and 
majestic heads, full of health and majesty, or grandly stamped with 



292 TREES, 

tlie wild irregularity of nature in her sterner types. The few Dutch 
or French artists who are the exceptions to this, and have copied 
those emblems of pruned deformity — the pollard trees that figure 
in the landscapes of the Low Countries — have given local truthfulness 
to their landscapes, at the expense of every thing like sylvan loveli- 
ness. A pollard willow should be the very type and model of beauty 
in the eye of the champion of the pruning saw. Its finest parallels 
in the art of mending nature's proportions for the sake of beauty, 
are in the flattened heads of a certain tribe of Indians, and the de- 
formed feet of Chinese Avomen. What nature has especially shaped 
for a delight to the eye, and a fine suggestion to the spiritual sense, 
as a beautiful tree, or the human form divine, man should not lightly 
undertake to remodel or clij) of its fair proportions. 



11. 



HOW TO POPULARIZE THE TASTE FOR PLANTING. 

July, 1852. 

HOW to popularize that taste for rural beauty, which gives to 
every beloved home in the country its greatest outward charm, 
and to the country itself its highest attraction, is a question which 
must often occur to many of our readei's. A traveller never jour- 
neys through England without lavishing all the epithets of admii'a- 
tion on the rural beauty of that gardenesque country ; and his 
praises are as justly due to the way-side cottages of the humble 
laborers (whose pecuniary condition of life is far below that of our 
numerous small householders), as to the gi'eat palaces and villas. 
Perhaps the loveliest and most fascinating of the " cottage homes," 
of which Mrs. Hemans has so touchingly sung, are the clergymen's 
dwellings in that country ; dwellings, for the most part, of very mod- 
erate size, and no greater cost than are common in all the most 
thriving and populous parts of the Union — but which, owing to the 
love of horticulture, and the taste for something above the merely 
useful, which characterizes their owners, as a class, are, for the most 
part, radiant with the bloom and embellishment of the loveliest 
flowers and shrubs. 

The contrast with the comparatively naked and neglected coun- 
try dwellings that are the average rural tenements of our country at 
large, is very striking. Undoubtedly, this is, in part, owing to the 
fact that it takes a longer time, as Lord Bacon said a century ago, 
" to garden finely than to build stately." But the newness of our 
civilization is not sufficient apology. If so, we should be spared the 



294 TREES. • 

exhibition of gay carpets, fine mirrors and furniture in the " front 
parlor," of many a mechanic's, working-man's, and farmer's comfort- 
able dwelling, where the " bare and bald " have pretty nearly su- 
preme control in the " front yard." 

What we lack, perhaps, more than all, is, not the capacity to 
perceive and enjoy the beauty of ornamental trees and shrubs — the 
rural embellishment alike of the cottage and the villa, but we are de- 
ficient in the knowledge and the opportunity of knowing how beau- 
tiful human habitations are made by a little taste, time, and means, 
expended in this way. 

Abroad, it is clearly seen, that the taste has descended from the 
palace of the noble, and the public parks and gardens of the nation, 
to the hut of the simple peasant ; but here, while our institutions 
have wisely prevented the perpetuation of accumulated estates, that 
would speedily find their expression in all the luxury of rural taste, 
we have not yet risen to that general difi"usion of culture and com- 
petence which may one day give to the many, what in the old world 
belongs mainly to the favored few. In some localities, where that 
point has in some measure been arrived at already, the result that 
we anticipate has, in a good degree, already been attained. And 
there are, probably, more pretty rural homes within ten miles of 
Boston, owned by those who live in them, and have made them, 
than ever sprung up in so short a space of time, in any part of the 
world. The taste once formed there, it has become contagious, and 
is diffusing itself among all conditions of men, and gradually elevating 
and making beautiful, the whole neighborhood of that populous city. 

In the country at large, however, even now, there cannot be said 
to be any thing like a general taste for gardening, or for embellish- 
ing the houses of the people. We are too much occupied with 
making a great deal, to have reached that point when a man or a 
people thinks it wiser to understand how to enjoy a little well, than 
to exhaust both mind and body in getting an indefinite more. And 
there are also many who would gladly do something to give a senti- 
ment to their houses, but are ignorant both of the materials and the 
way to set about it. Accordingly, they plant odorous ailanthuses 
and filthy poplars, to the neglect of graceful elms and salubrious 
maples. 



HOW TO POPULARIZE THE TASTE FOR PLANTING. 295 

The influence of commercial gardens on the neighborhood where 
they are situated, is one of tlie best pi-oofs of the growth of taste — 
that our j)eople have no obtuseness of faculty, as to what is beauti- 
ful, but only lack information and example to embellish with the 
heartiest good will. Take Rochester, N. Y., for instance — which, at 
the present moment, has perhaps the largest and most active nurse- 
ries in the Union. We are confident that the aggregate planting 
of fruits and ornamental trees, Avithiu fifty miles of Rochester, during 
the last ten years, has been twice as much as has taken place, in the 
same time, in any three of the southern States. Philadelphia has 
long been famous for her exotic gardens, and now even the little 
yard plats of the city dwellings, are filled with roses, jasmines, 
lagestroemias, and the like. Such facts as these plainly prove to us, 
that only give our people a knowledge of the beauty of fine trees 
and plants, and the method of cultivating them, and there is no 
sluggishness or inaptitude on the subject in the public mind. 

In looking about for the readiest method of diff"using a know- 
ledge of beautiful trees and plants, and thereby bettering our homes 
and our country, several means suggest themselves, which are worthy 
of attention. 

The first of these is, by tvhat private individuals may do. 

There is scarcely a single fine ^irivate garden in the country, 
which does not possess plants that are perhaps more or less coveted 
— or would at least be greatly prized by neighbors who do not joos- 
sess, and perhaps cannot easily procure them. Many owners of such 
places, cheerfully give away to their neighbors, any spare plants that 
they may possess ; but the majority decline, for the most part, to 
give away plants at all, because the indiscriminate practice subjects 
them to numerous and troublesome demands upon both the time 
and generosity of even the most liberally disposed. But eveiy gen- 
tleman who employs a gardener, could well aftbrd to allow that gar- 
dener to spend a couple of days in a season, in projiagating some 
one or two really valuable trees, shrubs, or plauts, that would be a 
decided acquisition to the gardens of his neighborhood. One or two 
specimens of such tree or plant, thus raised in abundance, might be 
distributed freely during the planting season, or during a given week 
of the same, to all who would engage to plant and take care of the 



296 TREES. 

same in their own grounds ; and thus this tree or plant would soon 
become widely distributed about the whole adjacent country. An- 
other seaso-n, still another desirable tree or plant might be taken in 
hand, and when ready for home planting, might be scattered broad- 
cast among those who desire to possess it, and so the labor of love 
might go on as convenience dictated, till the greater part of the gar- 
dens, however small, within a considerable circumference, would con- 
tain at least several of the most valuable, useful, and ornamental 
trees and shrubs for the climate. 

The second means is by lohat the nurserymen may do. 

We are very well aware that the first thought which will cross 
the mind of a selfish and narrow-minded nurseryman, (if any such 
read the foregoing paragraph,) is that such a course of gratuitous 
distribution of good plants, on the part of private persons, will 
speedily ruin his business. But he was never more greatly 
mistaken, as both observation and reason will convince him. Who 
are the nurseryman's best customers ? That class of men who 
have long owned a garden, whether it be half a rood or many 
acres, who have never planted trees — or, if any, have but those not 
worth planting ? Not at all. His best customers are those who 
have formed a taste for trees by planting thera, and who, having 
got a taste for imjjroving, are seldom idle in the matter, and keep 
pretty regular accounts with the dealers in trees. If you cannot 
get a person who thinks lie has but little time or taste for improving 
his place to buy trees, and he will accept a plant, or a fruit-tree, or 
a shade-tree, now and then, from a neighbor whom he knows to be 
" curious in such things " — by all means, we say to the nursery- 
man, encourage him to plant at any rate and all rates. 

If that man's tree turns out to his satisfaction, he is an amateur, 
one only beginning to pick the shell, to be sure — but an amateur 
full fledged by-and-by. If he once gets a taste for gardening down- 
right — if the flavor of his own rareripes touch his palate but once, 
as something quite different from what he has always, like a con- 
tented, ignorant donkey, bought in the market — if his Malmaison 
rose, radiant with the sentiment of the best of French women, and 
the loveliness of intrinsic bud-beauty once touches his hitherto dull 
eyes, so that the scales of his blindness to the fact that one rose 



HOW TO POPULARIZE THE TASTE FOR PLANTING. 297 

" differs from another," fall off for ever — then we say, thereafter he 
is one of the nurseryman's best customers. Begging is both too 
slow and too dependent a position for him, and his garden soon 
fills up by ransacking the nurseryman's catalogues, and it is more 
likely to be swamped by the myriad of things which he would 
think very much alike, (if he had not bought them by different 
appellations,) than by any empty spaces waiting for the liberality of 
more enterprising cultivators. 

And thus, if the nurseryman can satisfy himself with our rea- 
soning that he ought not object to the amateur's becoming a gra- 
tuitous distributor of certain plants, we would persuade him for 
much the same reason, to follow the exanuple himself. No person 
can propagate a tree or plant with so little cost, and so much ease, 
as one whose business it is to do so. And we may add, no one is 
more likely to know the really desirable varieties of trees or plants, 
than he is. No one so well knows as himself that the newest 
thing-s — most zealously sought after at high prices — are by no 
means those which will give the most permanent satisfaction in a 
family garden. And accordingly, it is almost always the older 
and well-tried standard trees and plants — those that the nursery- 
man can best aftbrd to spare, those that he can grow most cheaply, 
— that he would best serve the diffusion of popular taste by distri- 
buting gratis. We think it would be best for all parties if the 
variety were very limited — and we doubt whether the distribution 
of two valuable hardy trees or climbers for five years, or till they 
became so common all over the surroundings as to make a distinct 
feature of embellishment, would not be more serviceable than dis- 
seminating a larger number of species. It may appear to some of 
our commercial readers, an odd recommendation to urge them to 
give away precisely that which it is their business to sell — but we 
are not talking at random, when we say most confidently, that such 
a com*se, steadily pursued by amateurs and nurserymen throughout 
the country, for ten years, would increase the taste for planting, and 
the demand for trees, five hundred fold. 

The third means is by ivhat the Horticultural Societies may do. 

We believe there are now about forty Horticultural Societies in 
North America. Hitlierto they have contented themselves, year 



298 TREES. 

after year, Avith giving pretty mucli the same old scliedulo of pre- 
miums for the best cherries, cabbages, and carnations, all over the 
country — till the stimulus begins to wear out — somewhat like the 
effects of opium or tobacco, on confirmed habitues. Let them adopt 
our scheme of popuhirizing the taste for horticulture, by giving 
premiums of certain select small assortments of standard fruit trees, 
ornamental trees, shrubs, and vines, (purchased by the society of 
the nurserymen,) to the cultivators of such small gardens — sub- 
urban door-yards — or cottage inclosures, within a distance of ten 
miles round, as the inspecting committee shall decide to be best 
worthy, by their air of neatness, order, and attention, of such pre- 
miums. In this way, the valuable plants will fall into the right 
hands ; the vendor of trees and plants will be directly the gainer, 
and the stimulus given to cottage gardens, and the spread of the 
popular taste, \\\l\ be immediate and decided. 

" Tall oaks from little acorns grow " — is a remarkably trite 
aphorism, but one, the truth of which no one who knows the apti- 
tude of our people, or our intrinsic love of refinement and elegance, 
will underrate or gainsay. If, by such simple means as we have 
here pointed out, our great farm on this side of the Atlantic, ■with 
the water-privilege of both oceans, could be made to wear a little 
less the air of Canada-thistle-dom, and show a little more sign of 
blossoming like the rose, we should look upon it as a step so much 
nearer the millennium. In Saxony, the traveller beholds with no 
less surprise and delight, on the road between Wiessenfels and 
Halle, quantities of the most beautiful and rare shrubs and flowers, 
growing along the foot-paths, and by the sides of the hedges which 
line the public promenades. The custom prevails there, among 
private individuals who have beautiful gardens, of annually planting- 
some of their surplus materiel along these public promenades, for 
the enjoyment of those who have no gardens. And the custom is 
met in the same beautiful spirit by the people at large ; for in the 
main, those embellishments that turn the highway into pleasure 
grounds, are respected, and grow and bloom as if within the inclosures. 

Does not this argue a civilization among these " down-ti'odden 
nations " of Central Europe, that would not be unwelcome in this, 
our land of equal rights and free schools ? 



.III. 

ON PLANTING SHADE-TREES. 

Novembei', 1847. 

NOW tliat the season of the present is nearly over ; now that 
spring with its freshness of promise, summer with its luxury 
of development, and autumn with its fulfilment of fruitfulness, have 
all laid their joys and benefits at our feet, we naturally pause for a 
moment to see what is to be done in the rural plans of the future. 

The PLANTING SEASON is at hand. Our correspondence with all 
parts of the country informs us, that at no previous time has the 
improvement of private grounds been so active as at present. New 
and tasteful residences are every where being built. New gardens 
are being laid out. New orchards of large extent are rapidly being 
planted. In short, the horticultural zeal of the country is not only 
awake — it is brimfuU of energy and activity. 

Private enterprise being thus in a fair way to take care of itself, 
we feel that the most obvious duty is to endeavor to arouse a cor- 
responding spirit in certain rural improvements of a more public 
nature. 

We therefore return again to a subject which we dwelt upon at 
some length last spring — the planting of shade-trees in the streets 
of our rural towns and villages. 

Pleasure and profit are certain, sooner or later, to awaken a large 
portion of our countrymen to the advantages of improving their 
own private grounds. But we find that it is only under two condi- 
tions that many public improvements are carried on. The first is, 
when nearly the whole of the population enjoy the advantages of 



300 TREKS. 

education, as in New England. The second is, wlien a few of the 
more spirited and intelligent of the citizens move the rest by taking 
the burden in the beginning upon their own shoulders by setting the 
example themselves, and by most zealously urging all others to follow. 

The villages of New England, looking at their sylvan charms, 
are as beautiful as any in the world. Their architecture is simple 
i and unpretending — often, indeed, meagre and unworthy of notice. 
The houses are surrounded by inclosures full of trees and shrubs, 
with space enough to affoi'd comfort, and ornament enough to de- 
note taste. But the main street of the village is an avenue of elms, 
positively delightful to behold. Always wide, the overarching 
boughs form an aisle more grand and beautiful than that of any old 
Gothic cathedral. Not content, indeed, with one avenue, some of 
these villages have, in their wide, single street, three lines of trees, 
forming a double avenue, of which any grand old palace abroad 
might well be proud. Would that those of our readers, whose souls 
are callous to the charms of the lights and shadows that bedeck 
these bewitching rural towns and villages, would forthwith set out 
out on a pilgrimage to such jilaces as Northampton, Spi-ingfield, 
New Haven, Pittsfield, Stockbridge, Woodbury, and the like. 

When we contrast with these lovely resting places for the eye, 
embowered with avenues of elms, gracefully droop'ing like fountains 
of falling water, or sugar-maples swelling and towering up like finely 
formed antique vases — some of the uncared for towns and villages 
in our own State, we are almost forced to believe that the famous 
common schools of New England teach the aesthetics of art, and 
that the beauty of shade-trees is the care of especial professorships. 
Homer and Virgil, Cicero, Manlius, and Tull}^, shades of the great 
Greeks and Romans ! — our citizens have named towns after you, but 
the places that bear your names scarcely hold leafy trees enough to 
renew the fading laurels round your heads ! — while the direct de- 
scendants of stern Puritans, who had a holy horror of things ornamen- 
tal, who cropped their hair, and made penalties for indulgences in fine 
linen, live in villages overshadowed by the very spirit of rufal elegance ! 

It is neither from a want of means, or want of time, or any ig- 
norance of what is essential to the beauty of body or of mind, that 
we see this neglect of the public becomingness. There are nmnbers 



ON PLANTING SHADE-TREES. 301 

of houses in all these villages, that boast their pianos, while the last 
Paris fashions are worn in the parlors, and the freshest periodical 
literature of both sides of the Atlantic fills the centre-tables. But 
while the comfort and good looks of the individual are sufficiently- 
cared for, the comfort and good looks of the town are sadly neg- 
lected. Our education here stops short of New England. We are 
slow to feel that the character of the inhabitants is always, in some 
degree, indicated by the appearance of the town. It is, unluckily, 
no one's especial business to ornament the streets. No one feels it 
a reproach to himself, that verdure and beauty do not hang like ri(;h 
curtains over the street in which he lives. And thus a whole village 
or town goes on from year to year, in a shameless state of public 
nudity and neglect, because no one feels it his particular duty to 
persuade his neighbors to join him in making the town in which he 
lives a gem of rural beauty, instead of a sony collection of unin- 
teresting houses. 

It is the fre<pent apology of intelligent persons who live in such 
places, and are more alive to this glaring defect than the majority, 
that it is impossible for them to do any thing alone, and their neigh- 
bors care nothing about it. 

One of the finest refutations of this kind of delusion exists in 
New Haven. All over the Union, this town is known as the " City 
of Elms." The stranger always pauses, and bears tribute to the 
taste of its inhabitants, while he walks beneath the gi'ateful shade 
of its lofty rows of trees. Yet a large part of the finest of these 
trees were planted, and the whole of the spirit which they have in- 
spired, was awakened by one person — Mr. Hillhouse. He lived 
long enough to see fair and lofty aisles of verdure, where, before, 
were only rows of brick or wooden houses ; and, we doubt not, he 
enjoyed a purer satisfaction than many great conquerors who have 
died with the honors of capturing kingdoms, and demolishing a 
hundred cities. 

Let no person, therefore, delay planting shade-trees himself, 
or persuading his neighbors to do the same. Wherever a village 
contains half a dozen persons zealous in this excellent work of 
adorning the country at large, let them form a society and make 
proselytes of those who are slow to be moved otherwise. A public 



302 TREES. 

spirited man in Boston does a great service to tlie community, and 
earns tlie thanks of his countrymen, by giving fifty thousand dollars 
to endow a professorship in a college ; let the public spirited man 
of the more humble village in the interior, also establish his claim 
to public gratitude, by planting fifty trees annually, along its public 
streets, in quarters where there is the least ability or the least taste 
to be awakened in this way, or where the poverty of the houses 
most needs something to hide them, and give an aspect of shelter 
and beauty. Hundreds of public meetings are called, on subjects 
not half so important to the welfare of the place as this, whose 
object would be to direct the attention of all the householders to 
the nakedness of their estates, in the eyes of those who most love 
our "country, and would see her rural towns and village homes made 
as attractive and pleasant as they are free and prosperous. 

We pointed out, in a former article, the principle that should 
guide those who are about to select trees for streets of rural towns 
— that of choosing that tree which the soil of the place will bring 
to the highest perfection. There are two trees, however, which are 
so eminently adapted to this purpose in the Northern States, that 
they may be universally employed. These are the American tveeping 
elm and the silver maple. They have, to recommend them, in the fii'st 
place, great rapidity of growth ; in the second place, the graceful 
forms which they assume ; in the third place, abundance of fine 
foliage ; and lastly, the capacity of adapting themselves to almost 
every soil where trees will thrive at all. 

These two trees have broad and spreading heads, fit for wide 
streets and avenues. That fine tree, the Dutch elm, of exceedingly 
rapid growth and thick dark-green foliage, makes a narrower and 
more upright head than our native sort, and, as well as the sugar 
maple, may be planted in streets and avenues, where there is but 
little room for the expansion of wide spreading tops. 

No town, where any of these trees are extensively planted, can 
be otherwise than agreeable to the eye, whatever may be its situa- 
tion, or the style of its dwellings. To villages prettily built, they 
will give a character of positive beauty, that will both add to the 
value of property, and increase the oomfort and patriotism of the 
inhabitants. 



IV. 



TREES IN TOWNS AND VILLAGES. 

March, 1847. 
" rpHE man who loves not trees, to look at them, to lie under 
JL them, to climb up them (once more a schoolboy,) would 
make no bones of murdering Mis. Jeft's. In what one imaginable 
attribute, that it ought to possess, is a tree, pray, deficient? Light, 
shade, shelter, coolness, freshness, music, — all the colors of the rain- 
bow, dew and dreams dropping through their soft twilight, at eve 
and morn, — dropping direct, soft, sweet, soothing, restorative from 
heaven. AVithout trees, how, in the name of wonder, coidd we 
have had houses, ships, bridges, easy chairs, or cofiins, or almost 
any single one of the necessaries, comforts, or conveniences of life ? 
Without trees, one man might have been born with a silver spoon 
in his mouth, but not another with a wooden ladle." 

Every man, who has in his nature a spark of sympathy with 
the good and beautiful, must involuntarily respond to this rhapsody 
of Christopher North's, in behalf of trees — the noblest and proudest 
drapery that sets off the figure of our fair planet. Every man's bet- 
ter sentiments woidd involuntarily lead him to cherish, respect, and 
admire trees. And no one who has sense enough rightly to under- 
stand the wonderful system of life, order, and harmony, that is in- 
volved in one of our grand and majestic forest-trees, could ever de- 
stroy it, unnecessarily, without a painful feeling, we should say, akin 
at least to murder in the fourth degree. 

Yet it must be confessed, that it is surprising, when, from the 
force of circumstances, what the phrenologists call the principle of 



304 TREES. 

destructivencss, gets excited, how sadly men's better feelings are 
warjjed and smothered. Thus, old soldiers sweep away ranks of 
men with as little compunction as the mower swings his harmless 
scythe in a meadow ; and settlers, pioneers, and squatters, girdle 
and make a clearing^ in a centennial forest, perhaps one of the 
grandest that ever God planted, with no more remorse than we have 
in brushing away dusty cobwebs. We are not now about to de- 
claim against war, as a member of the peace society, or against plant- 
ing colonies and extending the human family, as would a disciple 
of Dr. Maltlius. These are probably both wise means of progress, 
in the hands of the Great Worker. 

But it is properly our business to bring men back to their bet- 
ter feelings, when the fever of destruction is over. If our ancestors 
found it wise and necessary to cut down vast forests, it is all the 
more needful that their descendants should plant trees. We shall 
do our part, therefore, towards awakening again, that natural love of 
trees, which this long warfare against them — this continual laying 
the axe at their roots — so common in a new countiy, has, in so 
many places, well nigh extinguished. We ought not to cease, till 
every man feels it to be one of his moral duties to become a planter 
of trees ; until every one feels, indeed, that, if it is the most patriotic 
^hing that can be done to make the earth yield two blades of grass 
instead of one, it is far more so to cause trees to grow where no 
foliage has waved and fluttered before — trees, Avhich are not only 
full of usefulness and beauty always, but to which old Time himself 
grants longer leases than he does to ourselves ; so that he who plants 
them wisely, is more certain of receiving the thanks of posterity, 
than the most persuasive orator, or the most prolific writer of his 
day and generation. 

The especial theme of our lamentation touching trees at the pre- 
sent moment, is the general neglect and inattention to their many 
charms, in country towns and villages. We say general^ for our 
mind dwells with unfeigned delight upon exceptions — many beautiful 
towns and villages in New England, where the verdure of the loveliest 
■elms waves like grand lines of giant and graceful plumes above the 
house tops, giving an air of rural beauty, that speaks louder for the 
good habits of the inhabitants, than the pleasant sound of a hun- 



TREES IN TOWNS AND VILLAGES. 305 

dred church bells. We remember Northampton, Springfield, New 
Haven, Stockbridge, and others, whose long and pleasant avenues 
are refreshing and beautiful to look upon. We do not forget that 
large and sylan park, with undulating surface, the Boston Common, 
or that really admirable city arboretum of rare trees, Washington 
Square of Philadelphia.* Their groves are as beloved and sacred 
in our eyes, as those of the Deo-dar are to the devout Brahmins. 

But these are, we are sorry to be obliged to say, only the ex- 
ceptions to the average condition of our country towns. As an off- 
set to them, how many towns, how many villages, could we name, 
where rude and uncouth streets bask in the summer heat, and revel 
in the noontide glare, with scarcely a leaf to shelter or break the 
painfid monotony ! Towns and villages, where there is no lack of 
trade, no apparent want of means, where houses are yearly built, 
and children weekly born, but where you might imagine, from their 
barrenness, that the soil had been cursed, and it refused to support 
the life of a single tree. 

What must be done in such cases ? There must be at least one 
right-feeling man in every such Sodom. Let him set vigorously at 
woj-k, and if he cannot induce his neighbors to join him, he must 
not be disheartened — let him plant and cherish carefully a few 
trees, if only half a dozen. They must be such as will grow vigor- 
ously, and like the native elm, soon make themselves felt and seen 
wherever they may be placed. In a very few years they Avill preach 
more eloquent orations than "gray goose quills" can write. Their 
luxuiiant leafy arms, swaying and waving to and fro, will make 
moi'e convincing gestures than any member of congress or stump 
speaker ; and if there is any love of nature dormant in the dusty 
hearts of the villagers, we i>rophesy that in a very short time there 
will be such a general yearning after green trees, that the whole 
place will become a bower of freshness and verdure. 

In some parts of Germany, the government makes it a duty for 
every landholder to plant trees in the higliways, before his property ; 
and in a few towns that we have heard of, no young bachelor can 

* Which probably contaln3 more well grown specimens of different spe- 
cies of forest-trees, than any similar space of ground in America. 



306 TREES. 

take a wife till he has planted a tree. We have not a word to say 
against either of these regulations. But Americans, it must be con- 
fessed, do not like to be over-governed, or compelled into doing even 
beautiful things. We therefore recommend, as an example to all 
country towns, that most praiseworthy and successful mode of achiev- 
ing this result adopted by the citizens of Northampton, Massachu- 
setts. 

This, as we learn, is no less than an Ornamental Tree Society. 
An association, whose business and pleasure it is to turn dusty lanes 
and bald highways into alleys and avenues of coolness and verdure. 
Making a ".wilderness blossom like the rose," is scarcely more of a 
rural miracle than may be wrought by this simple means. It is 
quite incredible how much spirit such a society, composed at first 
of a few really zealous arboriculturists, may beget in a country 
neighborhood. Some men there are, in every such place, who are 
•too much occupied with what they consider more important raat-» 
tters, ever to plant a single tree, unsolicited. But these are readily 
acted upon by a society, who work for " the public good," and who 
,move an individual of this kind much as a town meeting moves 
him, by the gi-eater weight of numbers. Others there are, who can 
only be led into tasteful improvement, by the principle of imitation, 
and who consequently will not begin to plant trees, till it is the fash- 
lion to do so. And again, others who grudge the trifling cost of 
iputting out a shade-tree, but who will be shamed into it by the ex- 
ample of every neighbor around them — neighbors who have been 
stimulated into action by the zeal of the society. And last of all, as 
we have learned, there is here and there an instance of some slovenly 
and dogged fanner, who positively refuses to take the trouble to 
plant a single twig by the road-side. Such an individual, the soci- 
■ ety commiserate, and beg him to let them plant the trees in fi-ont 
of his estate at their own cost ! 

In this way, httle by little, the Ornamental Tree Society accom- 
plishes its ends. In a few years it has the satisfaction of seeing its 
village the pride of the citizens — for even those who were the most 
tardy to catch the planting fever, are at last — such is the silent and 
irresistible influence of sylvan beauty — the loudest champions of, 
;green trees — and the delight of all travellers, who treasure it up in 



TREES IN TOWNS AND VILLAGES. 30*7 

their hearts, as one does a picture drawn by poets, and colored by 
the light of some di\'ine genius. 

We heartily commend, therefore, this plan of Social Planting 
Reform^ to every desolate, leafless, and repulsive town and village in 
the country. There can scarcely be one, where there are not three 
persons of taste and spirit enough to organize such a society ; and 
once fairly in operation, its members will never cease to congratulate 
themselves on the beauty and comfort they have produced. Every 
tree which they plant, and which grows up in after years into a 
giant ti'unk and grand canopy of foliage, will be a better monument 
(though it may bear no lying inscription) than many an unmeaning 
obelisk of marble or granite. 

Let us add a few words respecting the best trees for adorning 
the streets of rural to-mis and villages. With the great number and 
variety of fine trees which flourish in this country, there is abundant 
reason for asking, " where shall we choose ?" And although we 
must not allow ourselves space at this moment, to dwell upon the 
subject in detail, we may venture two or three hints about it. 

Nothing appears to be so captivating to the mass of human 
beings, as novelty. And there is a fashion in trees, which sometimes 
has a sway no less rigorous than that of a Parisian modiste. Hence, 
while we have the finest indigenous, ornamental trees in the world, 
growing in our native forests, it is not an unusual thing to see them 
blindly overlooked for foreign species, that have not half the real 
charms, and not a tenth part of the adaptation to our soil and 
climate. 

Thirty years ago, there was a general Lombardy poplar epidemic. 
This tall and formal tree, striking and admirable enough, if very 
sparingly introduced in landscape planting, is, of all others, most 
abominable, in its serried stifi"ness and monotony, when planted in 
avenues, or straight lines. Yet nine-tenths of all the ornamental 
planting of that period, was made up of this now decrepit and con- 
demned tree. 

So too, we recall one or two of our villages, where the soil would 
have produced any of our finest forest trees, yet where the only trees 
thought worthy of attention by the inhabitants, are the ailanthus 
and the paper mulberry. 



308 TREES. 

The principle which would govern us, if we were planting the 
streets of rural towns, is this : Select the finest indigenous tree or 
trees ; such as the soil and climate of the place will bring to the 
highest perfection. Thus, if it were a neighborhood where the elm 
flourished peculiarly well, or the maple, or the beech, we would 
•directly adopt the tree indicated. We would then, in time, succeed 
in producing the finest possible specipens of the species selected : 
while, if we adopted, for the sake of fashion or novelty, a foreign 
tree, we should probably only succeed in getting poor and meagre 
specimens. 

It is because this principle has been, perhaps accidentally, pur- 
sued, that the villages of New England are so celebrated for their 
sylvan charms. The elm is, we think, nowhere seen in more ma- 
jesty, gi'eater luxuriance, or richer beauty, than in the valley of the 
Connecticut ; and it is because the soil is so truly congenial to it, 
that the elm-adorned streets of the villages there, elicit so much ad- 
miration. They are not only well planted with trees — but with a 
kind of tree which attains its greatest perfection there. Who can 
forget the fine lines of the sugar-maple, in Stockbridge, Massachu- 
setts ? They are in our eyes the rural glory of the place. The soil 
there is their own, and they have attained a beautiful symmetry 
and development. Yet if, instead of maples, poplars or willows 
had been planted, how marked would have been the difference of 
effect. 

There are no grander or more superb trees, than our American 
oaks. Those who know them only as they grow in the midst, or 
on the skirts of a thick forest, have no proper notion of their dignity 
and beauty, when planted and grown in an avenue, or where they 
have full space to develop. Now, there are many districts where 
the native luxuriance of the oak woods, points out the perfect adap- 
tation of the soil for this tree. If we mistake not, such is the case 
where that charming rural town in this State, Canandaigua, stands. 
Yet, we confess we were not a little pained, in walking through the 
streets of Canandaigua, the past season, to find them mainly lined 
with that comparatively meagre tree, the locust. How much finer 
and more imposing, for the long principal street of Canandaigua, 



TREES IN TOWNS AND VILLAGES. 309 

would be an avenue of our finest and hardiest native oaks — rich in 
foliage and grand in every part of their trunks and branches.* 

Though we think our native weejjing elm, or sugar maple, and 
two or three of our oaks, the finest of street trees for country villages, 
yet there are a great many others which may be adopted, when the 
soil is their own, with the happiest effect. What could well be 
more beautiful, for example, for a village with a deep, mellow soil, 
than a long avenue of that tall and most elegant tree, the tulip-tree 
or whitewood ? For a village in a mountainous district, like New 
Lebanon, in this State, we would perhaps choose the white pine, 
which would produce a grand and striking effect. In Ohio, the 
cuc-umber-tree would make one of the noblest and most admirable 
avenues, and at the south what could be conceived more captivating 
than a village whose streets were lined with rows of the magnolia 
grandiflora ? We know how little common minds appreciate these 
natural treasures ; how much the less because they are common in 
the woods about them. Still, such are the trees which should be 
planted ; for fine forest trees are fast disappearing, and planted trees, 
grown in a soil fully congenial to them, will, as we have already 
said, assume a character of beauty and grandeur that will arrest the 
attention and elicit the admiration of every traveller. 

The variety of trees for cities — densely crowded cities — is but 
small; and this, chiefly, because the warm brick walls are such 
hiding-jilaces and nui*series for insects, that many fine trees — fine for 
the country and for rural towns — become absolute pests in the cities. 
Thus, in Philadelphia, we have seen, with regret, whole rows of the 
Em-opean linden cut down within the last ten years, because this 
tree, in cities, is so infested with odious worms, that it often becomes 
unendurable. On this account that foreign tree, the ailanthus, the 
strong scented foliage of which no insect will attack, is every day 
becoming a greater metropolitan favorite. The maples are among 
the thriftiest and most acceptable trees for large cities, and no one 
of them is more vigorous, cleaner, hardier, or more graceful than the 
silver maple. [Acer eriocarpum). 

* The oak is easily transplanted from the nurseries — though not from 
the woods, unless in the latter case, it has been prepared a year beforehand 
by shortening the roots and branches. 



310 TREES. 

We must defer any further remarks for the present ; but we must 
add, in conclusion, that the planting season is at hand. Let every 
man, whose soul is not a desert, plant trees ; and that not alone for 
himself — within the bounds of his own demesne, but in the streets, 
and along the rural highways of his neighborhood. Thus he will 
not only lend grace and beauty to the neighborhood and county in 
which he lives, but earn, honestly and well, the thanks of his fellow- 
men. 



V. 

SHADE-TREES IN CITIES. 

August, 1852. 
" T\OWN with the ailanthus ! " is tlie cry we hear on all sides, 
JLy town and country, — now that this " tree of heaven " (as 
the catalogues used alluringly to call it) has penetrated all parts of 
the Union, and begins to show its true character. Down with the 
ailanthus ! " Its blossoms smell so disagreeably that my family are 
made ill by it," says an old resident on one of the squares in New- 
York, where it is the only shade for fifty contiguous houses. " We 
must positively go to Newport, papa, to escape these horrible ailan- 
thuses," exclaim numberless young ladies, who find that even their 
best JeoM Maria Farina^ affords no permanent relief, since their 
front parlors have become so celestially embowered. " The vile tree 
comes up all over my garden," say fifty owners of suburban lots who 
have foolishly been tempted into bordering the outside of their 
" yards " with it — having been told that it grows so " surprising fast." 
"It has ruined my lawn for fifty feet all round each tree," say the 
country gentlemen, who, seduced by the oriental beauty of its foli- 
age, have also been busy for years dotting it in open places, here 
and there, in their pleasure-grounds. In some of the cities south- 
ward, the authorities, taking the matter more seriously, have voted 
the entire downfall of the whole species, and the Herods who wield 
the besom of sylvan destruction, have probably made a clean sweep 
of the first born of celestials, in more towns than one south of Mason 
and Dixon's line this season. 

Although we think there is picturesqueness in the free and luxu- 



312 TREES. 

riant foliage of the ailanthus, we shall see its downfall without a 
word to save it. We look upon it as an usurper in rathei- bad odor 
at home, which has come over to this land of liberty, under the 
garb of utility,* to make foul the air, with its pestilent breath, and 
devour the soil, with its intermeddling roots — a tree that has the 
fair outside and the treacherous heart of the Asiatics, and that has 
played us so many tricks, that we find we have caught a Tartar 
which it requires something more tliau a Chinese wall to confine 
within limits. 

Down with the ailanthus ! therefore, we cry with the populace. 
But we have reasons beside theirs, and now that the favorite has 
fallen out of favor with the sovereigns, we may take the opportunity 
to preach, a funeral sermon over its remains, that shall not, like so 
many funeral sermons, be a bath of oblivion-waters to wash out all 
memory of its vices. For if the Tartar is not laid violent hands 
upon, and kept under close watch, even after the spirit has gone out 
of the old trunk, and the coroner is satisfied that he has come to a 
violent end — lo, we shall have him upon us tenfold in the shape of 
suckers innumerable — little Tartars that will beget a new dynasty, 
and overrun our grounds and gardens again, without mercy. 

The vices of the ailanthus — the incurable vices of the by-gone 
fiivorite — then, are twofold. In the first place, it smdU horribly, 
both in leaf and flower — and instead of sweetening and puritying 
the air, fills it with a heavy, sickening odor ; f in the second place, 
it suckers abominably, and thereby overruns, appropriates, and re- 
duces to beggary, all the soil of every open piece of ground where 
it is planted. These are the mortifications which every body feels 
sooner or later, who has been seduced by the luxuriant outstretched 
welcome of its smooth round arms, and the waving and beckoning 
of its graceful plumes, into giving it a place in their home circle. 
For a few years, while the tree is growing, it has, to be sure, a fair 

* The ailanthus, though originally from China, was first introduced into 
this country from Europe, as the "Tanner's sumac" — hut the mistake was 
.soon discovered, and its rapid growth made it a favorite with pLantei-s. 

f Two acquaintances of ours, in a house in the upper part of the city 
•of New-York, are regularly driven out by the ailanthus mahxria every 
season. 



SHADE-TREES IN CITIES. 313 

and specious look. You feel almost, as you look at its round trunk 
shooting up as straight, and almost as fast as a rocket, crowned by 
such a luxuriant tuft of verdure, that you have got a young palm- 
tree before your door, that can whisper tales to you in the evening 
of that " Flowery Country " from whence you have borrowed it, and 
you swear to stand by it against all slanderous aspersions. But 
alas ! you are greener in your experience than the Tartar in his 
leaves. A few years pass by ; the sapling becomes a tree — its blos- 
soms fill the air with something that looks like curry-po^vder, and 
smells like the plague. You shut down the windows to keep out 
the unhalmy June air, if you live in town, and invariably give a 
wide berth to the heavenly avenue, if you belong to the country. 

But we confess oi^enly, that our crowning objection to this petted 
Chinaman or Tartar, who has played us so falsely, is a patriotic ob- 
jection. It is that he has drawn away our attention from our own 
more noble native American trees, to waste it on this miserable pig- 
tail of an Indiaman. What should we think of the Italians, if they 
should forswear their own orange-trees and figs, pomegranates and 
citrons, and plant their streets and gardens with the poison sumac- 
tree of our swamps ? And what must a European arboriculturist 
think, who travels in America, delighted and astonished at the 
beauty of our varied and exhaustless forests — the richest in the 
temperate zone, to see that we neither value nor plant them, but fill 
our lawns and avenues with the cast-off nuisances of the gardens 
of Asia and Europe ? 

And while in the vein, we would include in the same category 
another less fashionable, but still much petted foreigner, that has 
settled among us with a good letter of credit, but who deserves not 
his success. We mean the abele or silver poplar. There is a 
pleasant flutter in his silver-lined leaves — but when the timber is a 
foot thick, you shall find the air unpleasantly filled, every spring, 
with the fine white down which flies from the blossom, while the 
suckers which are thrown up from the roots of old aheles are a pest 
to all grounds and gardens, even worse than those of the ailanthus. 
Down with the abeles ! 

Oh ! that our tree-planters, and they are an army of hundreds 
of thousands in this country — ever increasing with the growth of 



314 TREES. 

good taste — oh ! that they knew and could understand the surpann- 
ing beauty of our native shade-trees. More than forty species of oak 
are there in North America (Great Britain has only two species — 
France only five), and we ai-e richer in maples, elms, and ashes, 
than any country in the old world. Tulip-trees and magnolias from 
Afrierica, are the exotic glories of the princely grounds of Europe. 
P>ut (saving always the praiseworthy partiality in New England for 
our elms and maples), who plants an American tree — in America ? 
And who, on the contrary, that has planted shade-trees at all in the 
United States, few the last fifteen years, has not planted either ailan- 
thuses or abele poplars ? We should like to see that discreet, sagacious 
individual, who has escaped the national ecstasy for foreign suckers. 
If he can be found, he is more deserving a gold medal from our 
horticultural societies, than the grower of the most mammoth 
pumpkin, or elephantine beet, that will garnish the cornucopia of 
Pomona for 1852. 

In this confession of our sins of commission in planting filthy 
suckers, and omission in not planting clean natives — we must lay 
part of the burden at the door of the nurserymen. (It has been 
found a convenient practice — this shifting the responsibility — ever 
since the first trouble about trees in the Garden of Eden.) 

" Well ! then, if the nurserymen will raise ailanthuses and abeles 
by the thousands," reply the planting community, " and telling us 
nothing about pestilential odors and suckers, tell us a great deal 
about ' rapid growth, immediate effect — beauty of foliage — rare 
foreign trees,' and the like, it is not surprising that we plant what 
turn out, after twenty years' trial, to be nuisances instead of embel- 
lishments. It is the business of the nurserymen to supply planters 
with the best trees. If they supply us with the worst, who sins the 
most, the buyer or the seller of such stuff" ?" 

Softly, good friends. It is the business of the nurserymen to 
make a profit by raising trees. If you will pay just as much for a 
poor tree, that can be raised in two years from a sucker, as a valua- 
ble tree that requires four or five years, do you wonder that the nur- 
serymen will raise and sell you ailanthuses instead of oaks ? It is 
the business (duty, at least) of the planter, to know what he is about 
to plant ; and though there are many honest tradere, it is a good 



SHADE-TREES IN CITIES. 315 

maxim that the Turks have — " Ask no one in the bazaar to praise 
his own goods." To the eyes of the nurserymen a crop of ailau- 
thuses and abeles is " a pasture in the valley of sweet waters." But 
go to an old homestead, where they have become naturalized, and 
you will find that there is a bitter aftertaste about the experience of 
the unfortunate possessor of these sylvan treasures of a far-oft" 
country.* 

The planting intelligence must therefore increase, if we would 
fill our grounds and shade our streets with really valuable, ornamen- 
tal trees. The nurserymen will naturally raise what is in demand, 
and if but ten customers offer in five years for the overcup oak, 
while fifty come of a day for the ailanthus, the latter will be culti- 
vated as a matter of course. 

The question immediately arises, what shall we use instead of 
the condemned trees ? What, especially, shall we use in the streets 
of cities ? Many — nay, the majority of shade-trees-*— clean and 
beautiful in the country — are so infested with worms and insects in 
towns as to be worse than useless. The sycamore has failed, the 
linden is devoured, the elm is preyed upon by insects. We have 
rushed into the arms of the Tartar, partly out of fright, to escape 
the armies of caterpillars and cankerworms that have taken posses- 
sion of better trees ! 

Take refuge, friends, in the American maples. Clean, sweet, 
cool, and umbrageous, are the maples ; and, much vaunted as ailan- 
thuses and poplars are, for their lightning growth, take our word for , 
it. that it is only a good go-ofl^ at the start. A maple at twenty years 
— or even at ten, if the soil is favorable, will be much the finer and ^ 
larger tree. No tree transplants more readily — none adapts itself 
more easily to the soil, than the maple. For light soils, and the 
milder parts of the Union, say the Middle and Western States, the 
silver maple, with drooping branches, is at once the best and most 
graceful of street trees. For the North and East, the soft maple and 

* "We may as well add for the benefit of the novice, the advice to shun 
all trees that are universally propagated by mckers. It is a worse inherit- 
ance for a tree than drunkenness for a child, and more difiicult to eradicate. 
Even ailanthuses and poplars /ro?n seed have tolerably respectable habits 
as regards radical things. 



316 TREES, 

the sugai' maple. If any one wishes to know tlie glory and beauty 
of the sugar maple as a street tree, let him make a pilgrimage to 
Stockbridge, in Massachusetts ! If he desires to study the silver 
maple, there is no better school than Burlington, New Jersey. 
These are two towns almost wholly planted with these American 
trees — of the sylvan adornings of which any " native " may well be 
{iroud. The inhabitants neither have to abandon their front rooms 
from " the smell," nor lose the use of their back yards by " the 
suckers." And whoever plants either of these three maples, may 
feel sure that he is earning the thanks instead of the reproaches of 
posterity. 

The most beautiful and stately of all trees for an avenue — and 
especially for an avenue street in town — is an American tree that 
one rarely sees planted in America* — never, that we remember, in 
any public street. We mean the tulip-tree., or liriodendron. What 
can be more beautiful than its trunk — finely ^proportioned, and 
smooth as a Grecian column ? What more artistic than its leaf — 
cut like an arabesque in a Moorish palace ? AVhat more clean and 
lustrous than its tufts of foliage — dark-green, and rich as deepest 
emerald ? What more lily-like and specious than its blossoms — 
golden and bronze.shaded ? and what fairer and more queenly than 
its whole figure — stately and regal as that of Zenobia ? For a park 
tree, to spread on every side, it is unrivalled, growing a hundred and 
thirty feet high, and spreading into the finest symmetry of outline.f 
For a street tree, its columnar stem, beautiful either with or without 
branches — with a low head or a high head — foliage over the second 
story or under it — is precisely what is most needed. A very spread- 
ing tree, like the elm, is alwaj's somewhat out of place in townT^be- 
cause its natural habit is to extend itself laterally. A tree with the 
habit of the tulip, lifts itself into the finest pyramids of foliage, ex- 
actly suited to the usual width of town streets — and thus embel- 
lishes and shades, without darkening and incumbering them. Be- 

* Though there are grand avenues of it in the royal parks of Germany 
— raised from American seed. 

■| At Wakefield, the fine country-seat of the Fisher faiiiily, near Phila- 
delphia, are several tulip-trees on the lawn, over one hundred feet high, 
and three to six feet in diameter. 



SHADE-TREES IN CITIES. 317 

sides this, the foliage of the tiiHp-tree is as clean and fresh at all 
times as the bonnet of a fair young quakeress, ajid no insect mars 
the purity of its rich foliage. 

We know very well that the tulip-tree is considered difficult to 
transplant. It is, the gardeners will tell you, much easier to plant 
ailanthuses, or, if you prefer, maples. Exactly, so it is easier to walk 
than to dance — but as all people who wish t^ be graceful in thcii 
gait learn to dance (if they can get an opportunity), so all j)lantei-s 
who wish a peculiarly elegant tree, will learn liow to plant the lirio- 
dendron. In the first place the soil must be light and rich — better 
than is at all necessary for the maples — and if it cannot be made 
light and rich, then the planter must confine himself to maples. 
Next, the tree must be transplanted just about the time of com- 
mencing its growth in the spring, and the roots must be cut as little 
as possible, and not suffered to gst dry till rejjlanted. 

There is one point which, if attended to as it is in nurseries 
abroad, would render the tulip-tree as easily transplanted as a maple 
or a poplar. We mean the practice of cutting round the tree every 
year in the nursery till it is removed. This developes a ball of 
fibres, and so prepares the tree for the removal that it feels no shock 
at all.* Nurserymen could well afford to grow tulip-trees to the 
size suitable for street planting, and have them twice cut or removed 
beforehand, so as to enable them to warrant their growth in any 
good soil, for a dollar apiece. (And we believe the average price 
at which the thousands of noisome ailanthuses that now infest our 
streets have been sold, is above a dollar.) No buyer pays so mucli 
and so willingly, as the citizen who has only one lot front, and five 
dollare each has been no uncommon price in New-Yoik for " trees 
of heaven." 

After our nurserymen have practised awhile this preparation of 
the tulip-trees for the streets by previous removals, they will gradu- 
ally find a demand for the finer oaks, beeches, and other trees now 
considered difficult to trans})lant for the same cause — and about 
which there is no difficulty at all, if this precaution is taken. Any 

* In many continental nurseries, this annual preparation in the nursery, 
takes place until fruit trees of bearing size can be removed without the 
sliglitest injury to the crop of the same year. ^ 



318 TREES. 

body can catch " suckers" in a still pond, but a trout must be tickled 
with dainty bait. Yet true sportsmen do not, for this reason, prefer 
angling with worms about the margin of stagnant pools, when they 
can whip the gold-spangled beauties out of swift streams with a 
little skill and preparation, and we trust that m future no true lover 
of trees will plant " suckers " to torment his future days and sight, 
when he may, with a little more pains, have the satisfaction of en- 
joying the shade of the freshest and comeliest of American forest 
trees. 










Th.j Cedar of Lebanon. 

Kull jjr.iwii tree iit l'"oxley, planted by Sir Uvoihile I'lic. 



VI. 

RARE EVERGREEN TREES. 

June, 1847. 

AN American may be allowed some honest pride in the beauty 
and profusion of fine forest trees, natives of our western hemi- 
sphere. North America is the land of oaks, pines, and magnolias, 
to say nothing of the lesser genera ; and the parks and gardens of 
all Europe owe their choicest sylvan treasures to our native woods 
and hills. 

But there is one tree, almost every where naturalized in Europe 
— an evergreen tree as pre-eminently grand and beautiful among 
evergreens, as a proud ship of the line among little coasting-vessels 
— a historical tree, as rich in sacred and j^oetic association as Mount 
Sinai itself — a hardy tree, from a region of mountain snows, which 
bears the winter of the middle States ; and yet, notwithstanding all 
these unrivalled claims to attention, we believe there are not at this 
moment a dozen good specimens of it, twenty feet high, in the 
United States. 

We mean, of course, that world-renowned tree, the Cedar of 
Lebanon : that tree which was the favorite of the wisest of kings ; 
the wood of which kindled the burnt-offerings of the Israelites in the 
time of Moses ; of which was built the temple of Solomon, and 
which the Prophet Ezekiel so finely used as a simile in describing 
a gi'eat empire ; — " Behold, the Assyrian w^as a cedar in Lebanon, 
with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of a high 
stature ; and his top was among the thick boughs. His boughs 
were multiplied, and his branches became long. The fir-trees were 



320 TREES. 

not like his boughs, nor the chestnut-trees Hke his branches, nor any 
tree in the garden of God like unto him in beauty." 

The original forests of this tree upon Mount Lebanon, must have 
been truly vast, as Solomon's " forty thousand heAvers" were em- 
ployed there in cutting the timber used in building tlie temple. It 
is indeed most probable that they never recovered or were renewed 
afterwards, since modern travellers give accounts of their gradual 
disappearance. Such, however, is the great age and longevity of 
this tree, that it is highly credible that the few existing old specimens 
on Mount Lebanon, are remnants of the ancient forest. Lamartine, 
who made a voyage to the Holy Land, and visited these trees in 
1832, gives the following account of them : 

"We alighted and sat down under a rock to contemplate them. 
These trees are the most renowned natural monuments in the uni- 
verse ; religion, poetry, and history, have all equally celebrated 
them. The Arabs of all sects entertain a traditional veneration for 
these trees. They attribute to them not only a vegetative power, 
which enables them to live eternally, but also an intelligence, which 
causes them to manifest signs of wisdom and foresight, similar to 
those of instinct and reason in man. They are said to understand 
the changes of seasons ; they stir their vast branches as if they were 
limbs ; they spread out and contract their boughs, inclining them 
towards heaven, or towards earth, according as the snow prepares to 
fall or to melt. These trees diminish in every succeeding age. 
Travellers formerly counted 30 or 40 ; more recently IV ; more re- 
cently still only 12 ; there are now but 1. These, however, from 
their size and general appearance, may be fairly presumed to have 
existed in biblical times. Around these ancient witnesses of ages 
long since past, there still remains a grove of yellower cedars, ap- 
pearing to me to form a group of 400 or 500 trees or shrubs. Every 
year, in the month of June, the inhabitants of Beschieria, of Eden, of 
Kanobin, and the other neighboring valleys and villages, clamber up 
to these cedars, aad celebrate mass at their feet. How many pray- 
ers have resounded under these branches ; and what more beautiful 
canopy for worship can exist ! " 

The trunks of the largest of these venerable trees measure from 
30 to 40 feet in circumference. The finest and most numerous 



RARE EVERGREEN TREES. 



321 



Cedars of Lebanon in the world, at the present moment, however, 
are in Great Britain. A people so fond of park scenery as the Eng- 
lish, could not but be early impressed with the magnificence of this 
oriental cedar. It was accordingly introduced into England as early 
as 1683, and the two oldest trees on record there are said to have 
been planted by Queen Elizabeth. The Duke of Richmond of the 
year 1761, planted 1000 young Cedars of Lebanon; and nearly all 
the larger estates in England boast their noble specimens of this tree 
at the present day. The tallest specirrien in England, is that at 
Strathficldsaye, the seat of the Duke of Wellington, which is 108 
feet high. Woburn Abbey boasts also many superb specimens 
varying from 60 to 90 feet high, nine of which measure from 4 to 6 
feet each in the diameter of their trunks. But the largest, and, ac- 
cording to Loudon, unquestionably the handsomest cedar in Eng- 
land, is the magnificent specimen at Syon House, the seat of the 
Duke of Northumberland. This tree is 72 feet high, the diameter 
of its head 117 feet, and of the trunk 8 feet. We give a miniature 
engraving of this tree 
(Fig. 1) from the 
Arboretum Britanni- 
cuni, and also of the 
tree at Foxley, plant- 
ed ,by Sir Uvedale 
Price, which is 50 
feet high, with a 
trunk measuring 4 
feet in diameter. 

The finest speci- 
men of this ever- 
green in the United States, is that upon the grounds of Thomas 
Ash, Esq., at Throg's Neck, Westchester county, N. Y. We made 
a hasty sketch of this ti-ee in 1845, of which the annexed engi-aving 
is a miniature. (Fig. 2.) It is about 50 feet high, and has, we 
learn, been planted over 40 years. It is a striking and beautiful 
tree, but has as yet by no means attained the grandeur and dignity 
which a few more years will give it. Still, it is a very fine tree, and 
21 




Fio. 1. The Syon Cedar. 



322 



TREES. 




no one can look upon it without being inspired with a desire to 

plant Cedars of Lebanon. 

The most remarkable peculiarity in the Cedar of Lebanon is the 

horizontal disposition of its wide spreading branches. This is not 

apparent in very young trees, but 
soon becomes so as they begin to de- 
velope large heads. Though in alti- 
tude this tree is exceeded by some of 
the pines lately discovered in Oregon, 
which reach truly gigantic heights, 
yet in breadth and massiveness it far 
exceeds all other evergreen trees, and 
when old and finely developed on 
every side, is not equalled in an or- 
namental point of \aew, by any syl- 
van tree of temperate regions. 

Its charactea" being essentially 
grand and magnificent, it therefore 

Fig. 2. Cedar of Lebanon, at Mr. Ash's, should only be planted where there 

near New-York. • m • j. r v i i 

IS suincient room tor its develop- 
ment on every side. Crowded among other trees, all its fine 
breadth and massiveness is lost, and it is drawn up with a narrow 
head like any other of the pine family. But planted in the midst 
of a broad lawn, it will eventually form a sublime object, far more 
impressive and magnificent than most of the country houses which 
belong to the private life of a republic. 

The Cedar of Lebanon grows in almost every soil, from the 
poorest gravel to the richest loam. It has been remarked in Eng- 
land that its growth is most rapid in localities where, though plant- 
ed in a good dry soil, its roots can reach water — such as situations 
near the margins of ponds or springs. In general, its average growth 
in this country in favorable soils is about a foot in a year ; and when 
the soil is very deeply trenched before planting, or when its roots 
are not stinted in the supply of moisture during the summer, it fre- 
quently advances with double that rapidity. 

Although hardy here, we understand in New England it requires 
slight protection in winter, while the trees are yet small. The 



RARE EVERGREEN TREES. 



323 



shelter afforded by sticking a few branches of evergreens in the 
ground around it, will fully answer this purpose. Wherever the 
Isabella grape matures fully in the open air, it may be cultivated 
successfully. The few plants that are offered for sale by the nursery- 
men in this coimtry, are imported from England in pots, but there 
is no reason why they should not be raised here from seeds, and 
sold in larger quantities at a reduced price. The seeds vegetate 
freely, even when three or fom- years old, and the cones containing 
them may easily be obtained of London seedsmen.* 

The cone of the Cedar of Lebanon (of which figure 3 is a re- 
duced drawing) is about 4 inches long, and is beautifully formed. , 

The spring is the better time for plant- 
ing the Cedar of Lebanon, in this climate. 
When the small trees are grown in pots, 
there is no difficulty in transporting them 
to any distance, and as the months of 
September and October are the best for 
importing them from England, we trust 
our leading nurserymen who are now 
importing thousands of fruit trees from 
London and Paris annually, will provide 
a sufficient stock of this most desirable 
evergreen for the spring sales of 1848. 
If the Cedar of Lebanon does not become 
a popular tree with all intelligent planters 
in this country, who have space enough 
to allow it to show its beauties, and a 
Cedli^fVwto'ne-s^^Uof thl climate not too inclement for its giwth, 
natural size. ^^^^ ^.^ ]i^yQ greatly overrated the 

taste of those engaged in rural improvements at the present mo- 




* Mr. Ash presented us with some cones from his tree in 1844, the seeds 
from which we planted and they vegetated very readily. They should be 
sown in the autumn, in light, rich soil, in broad flat boxes about four 
inches deep. These should be placed in a cellar till spring, and then kept 
during the summer following in a cool and rather shaded situation — the 
next winter in a cellar or cold pit, and the succeeding spring they may be 
transplanted into the nnrsery. 



324 TREES. 

ment in the United States. The only reason Avliy this grandest and 
most interesting of all evergreen trees, whieh may be grown in tliis 
country as easily as the hemlock, wherever the peacli bears well, has 
not already been extensively planted, is owing to two causes. First : 
that its merits and its adaptation to our soil and climate, are not 
generally known ; and, second, that it has as yet, without any suf- 
ficient reason, been difficult to procure it, even in our largest nurse- 
ries. We trust that our remarks may have the effect of inspiring 
many with an appreciation of its great charms, and that our ener- 
getic nurserymen, well knowing that there are thousands of young 
trees to be had in England, which may be imported in autumn, 
from one to three feet high, and in pots, in perfect condition, will be 
able in future to supply all orders for Cedars of Lebanon, 

While we are upon the subject of evergreen trees, we will briefly 
call the attention of our readei-s to another rare coniferous species, 
which is likely to prove a very interesting addition to our hardy ar- 
boretums. This is the Chili Pine, Araucaria imbricata, a singu- 
lar and noble evergreen from the Cordilleras mountains, in South 
America, where it attains the height of 150 feet. 

This pine, commonly known as the Araucaria (from Araucanos, 
the name of the Chilian tribe in whose country it grows), is distin- 
guished by its scale-like foliage, closely overlaid or imbricated, its 
horizontal branches springing out from the trunk in whorls or circles, 
and its immense globular cone, or fruit, as large as a man's head, 
containing numerous nutritious and excellent nuts. A single fruit 
contains between two hundred and three hundred of these kernels, 
which Dr. Poeppig informs us, supply the place of both the palm 
and corn to the Indians of the Chiliaii Andes. "As there are fre- 
quently twenty or thirty fruits on a stem, and as even a hearty eater 
among the Indians, except he should be wholly deprived of every 
other kind of sustenance, cannot consume more than two hundred 
nuts in a day, it is obvious that eighteen Araucaria trees will main- 
tain a single person for a whole year." The kernel is of the shape 
of an almond, but twice as large, and is eaten either fresh, boiled, 
or roasted ; and for winter's use, the women prepare a kind of pastry 
from them.* 

* Arboretum Britannicuin, p. 2438. 



RARE EVERGREEN TREES. 



325 



We borrow from tlie Arboretum Britannicum, an engraving one- 
sixth of the size of nature, showing the young branch and leaves 
(fig. 4), and also another (fig. 5), which is a portrait of a specimen 

growing at Kew Garden, 
England, taken in 18-^, 
when it was only twelve 
feet high. We also add, 
from the London Horticul- 
tural Magazine, the following 
memorandum respecting a 
tree at Dropmore, taken last 
summer (1846). 

" The following is the 
height and dimensions of 
the finest specimen we have 
of this noble tree, and pro- 
blably the largest in Europe : 
height 22 feet 6 inches; di- 
ameter of the spread of 
branches near the ground, 
10 feet 6 inches ; girth of 
the stem near the ground, 
2 feet 10 inches ; five feet 
above the ground, 2 feet. 

Fig. 4— Branch oftheAraucaria, or Chili Pine, one- The tree has made a rapid 

sixth of the natural size. growth this season, and pro- 

mises to get a foot higher, or more, before autumn ; it is about 
sixteen years old, and has never had the least protection ; it stands. 
in rather an exposed situation, on a raised mound, in which the tree 
delights. The soil is loam, with a small portion of poor peat, and 
the plant has never been watered, even in the hottest season we 
have had. A wet subsoil is certain death to the araucaria in very 
wet seasons. A plant here, from a cutting, made a leading shoot 
in the year 1833, and is now 19 feet 6 inches in height, and has 
every appearance of making a splendid plant." 

In Scotland, also, it stands without the slightest protection, and 
we have before us, in the Revue Jlorticole, an account of a planta- 




326 



TREES. 



tioii of these trees at Brest, in the north of France, a climate very 
much hke our own. The soil is a light sandy loam, poor and thin. 
Yet the trees, fully exposed, or sheltered only by a small belt of 
pines, have proved per- 
fectly hardy, resisting 
without injury, even the 
rigorous winter of 1829- 
30, when the thermome- 
ter was several degrees 
below zero of Fahren- 
heit. " The largest now 
measures about twenty 
feet in height. Its cir- 
cles or tiers of branches 
are five in number, dis- 
posed at perfectly equal 
distances, and closely re- 
sembling, in effect, a 
magnificent pyramid. — 
The stem, the branches, 
and their shoots, are all 

completely clothed with ^'S- 5-— The Chili Pine, or Araucania-Tree. 

leaves of a fine deep green ; these leaves are regularly and symmet- 
rically disposed, and are remarkable in their being bent backwards 
at their extremities, giving the effect, as well as the form, of the 
antique girandole." 

Mr. Buist, the well known Philadelphia nurseryman, who has 
already distributed a good many specimens of this tree in the United 
States, informed us last season, that it is entirely hardy in Philadel- 
phia ; and our correspondent. Dr. Valk, of Flushing, who has in his 
garden a specimen three feet high, writes us that it has borne the 
past winter without protection, and apparently uninjured. 

We may therefore reasonably hope that this unique South 
American tree, of most singular foliage, striking symmetry, and gi- 
gantic eatable fruit, will also take its place in our ornamental plan- 
tations, along with the cedar of Lebanon and the Deodar cedar, 
two of the grandest trees of the Asian world. 




VII. 

A WORD IN FAVOR OF EVERGREENS. 

May, 1848. 
" TTTHAT is the reason," said an intelligent European horticul- 
Y V turist to us lately, " that the Americans employ so few ever- 
greens in their ornamental plantations ? Abroad, they are the trees 
most sought after, most highly prized, and most valued in landscape- 
gardening ; and that, too, in countries where the winters are com- 
paratively mild and short. Here, in the northern United States, 
Avhere this season is both long and severe, and where you have, in 
your forests, the finest evergi-eens, they are only sparingly introduced 
into lawns or pleasure-grounds." 

Our friend is right. There is a lamentable poverty of evergreens 
in the gi'ounds of many country places in this country. Our planta- 
tions are mostly deciduous ; and while there are thousands of per- 
sons who plant, in this country, such trashy trees (chiefly fit for 
towns) as the ailanthus, there is not one planter in a hundred but 
contents himself with a few fir trees, as the sole representatives of 
the grand and rich foliaged family of evergreens. 

They forget that, as summer dies, evergreens form the richest 
back-ground to the kaleidoscope coloring of the changing autumn 
leaves ; that in winter, they rob the chilly frost-king of his sternest 
terrors ; that in spring, they give a southern and verdant character 
to the landscape in the first sunny day, when not even the earliest 
poplar or willow has burst its buds. 

More than this, — to look at the useful as well as the picturesque, 
they are the body guards — the grenadiers — the outworks and forti- 



328 TREES. 

fications — whicli properly defend the house and grounds from the 
cold winds, and the driving storms, tliat sweep pitilessly over unpro- 
tected places in many parts of the country. Well grown belts of 
evergreens — pines and firs, which 

" in conic forms arise, 



And with a pointed spear divide the skies," 

have, in their congregated strength, a power of shelter and protec- 
tion that no inexperienced person can possibly understand, without 
actual experience and the evidence of his own senses. Many a 
place, almost uninhabitable from the rude blasts of wind that sweep 
over it, has been rendered comparatively calm and sheltered ; many 
a garden, so exposed that the cultivation of tender trees and plants 
was almost impossible, has been rendered mild and genial in its cli- 
mate by the growth of a close shelter, composed of masses and 
groups of evergreen trees. 

Compared with England, — that country whose parks and pleas- 
ure grounds are almost wholly evergreen, because her climate is so 
wonderfully congenial to their culture that dozens of species grow 
with the greatest luxuriance there, which neither France, Germany, 
nor the northern United States will produce ; we say, compared 
with England, the variety of evergi-eens which it is possible for us to 
cultivate is quite limited. Still, though the variety is less, the gen- 
eral effect that may be produced is the same ; and there is no apo- 
logy for our neglecting, at least, the treasures that lie at our very 
gates, and by our road-sides — the fine indigenous trees of our coun- 
try. These are within every one's reach ; and even these, if properly 
introduced, would give a perpetual richness and beauty to our orna- 
mental grounds, of which they are at this time, with partial excep- 
tions, almost destitute. 

As we are addressing ourselves, now, chiefly to beginners, or 
those who have hitherto neglected this branch of arboriculture, we 
may commence by mentioning, at the outset, four evergreen trees 
worthy of attention — indeed, of almost universal attention, in our 
ornamental plantations. Those are the Hemlock^ the White Pine, 
the Norway Spruce, and the Balsam Fir. 

We place the hemlock {Abies canadensis) first, as we consider 



A WORD IN FAVOR OF EVERGREENS. 329 

it, beyond all question, the most graceful and beautiful evergreen 
tree commonly grown in this country. In its wild haunts, by the 
side of some steep mountain, or on the dark wooded banks of some 
deep valley, it is most often a grand and picturesque tree ; when, as 
in some parts of the northern States, it covers countless acres of wild 
forest land, it becomes gloomy and monotonous. Hence, there are 
few of our readers, unfamiliar as they are with it but in these 
phases, who have the least idea of its striking beauty when grown 
alone, in a smooth lawn, its branches extending freely on all sides, 
and sweeping the ground, its loose spray and full feathery foliage 
floating freely in the air, and its proportions full of the finest sym- 
metry and harmony. For aiiy gracefulness, and the absence of that 
stifi"ness more or less prevalent in most evergreens, we must be al- 
lowed, therefore, to claim the first place for the hemlock, as a tree 
for the lawn or park. 

Unfortunately, the hemlock has the reputation of being a difii- 
cult tree to transplant ; and though we have seen a thousand of 
them removed with scarcely the loss of half a dozen plants, yet we 
are bound to confess, that, with the ordinary rude handling of the 
common gardener, it is often impatient of removal. The truth is, 
all evergreens are far more tender in their roots than deciduous 
trees. They will not bear that exposure to the sun and air, even for 
a short period, which seems to have little efi'ect upon most deciduous 
trees. Once fairly dried and shrivelled, their roots are slow to re- 
gain their former vital power, and the plant in consequence dies. 

This point well understood and guarded against, the hemlock is 
by no means a difiicult tree to remove from the nurseries.* When 
taken from the woods, it is best done with a frozen ball of earth in 
the winter; or, if the soil is sufficiently tenacious, with a damp 
ball in the spring, as has lately been recommended by one of our 
correspondents. 

Of all the well known pines, we give the preference to our native 
White Pine (Pinus strobus) for ornamental purposes. The soft 

* In the nurseries this, and other evergreens, over four feet, should be 
regularly root pruned ; i. e., th% longest roots shortened with a spade every 
year. Treated thus, there is no difficulty whatever in removing trees of ten 
or twelve feet high. 



330 TREES, 

and agreeable hue of its pliant foliage, the excellent form of the tree, 
and its adaptation to a great variety of soils and sites, are all recom- 
mendations not easily overlooked. 

Besides, it bears transplanting particularly well ; and is, on this 
account also, more generally seen than any other species in our orna- 
mental plantations. But its especial merit, as an ornamental tree, 
is the perpetually fine, rich, lively green of its foliage. In the 
northern States, many evergreens lose their bright color in mid- 
winter, owing to the severity of the cold ; and though they regain 
it quickly in the first mild days of spring, yet this temporary dingi- 
ness, at the season when verdure is rarest and most prized, is, unde- 
niably, a great defect. Both the hemlock and the white pine are- 
exceptions. Even in the greatest depression of the thermometer 
known to our neighbors on the " disputed boundary " line, we be- 
lieve the verdure of these trees is the same fine unchanging green. 
Again, this thin summer growth is of such a soft and lively color, 
that they are (unlike some of the other pines, the red cedar, etc.) 
as pleasant to look upon, even in June, as any fresh and full foliaged 
deciduous tree, rejoicing in all its full breadth of new summer I'obes. 
We place the white pine, therefore, among the first in the regards 
of the ornamental planter. 

Perhaps the most popular foreign evergreen in this country is 
the Norway Spruce {^Ahies excclsa.) In fact, it is so useful and 
valuable a tree, that it is destined to become much more popular 
still. So hardy, that it is used as a nurse plant, to break off" the 
wind in exposed sites, and shelter more tender trees in young planta- 
tions ; so readily adapting itself to any site, that it thrives upon all 
soils, from light sand, or dry gravel, to deep moist loam or clay ; so 
accommodating in its habits, that it will grow under the shade of 
other trees, or in the most exposed positions ; there is no planter of 
new places, or improver of old ones, who will not find it necessary 
to call it in to his assistance. Then, again, the variety of purposes 
for which this tree may be used is so indefinite. Certainly, there are 
few trees more strikingly picturesque than a fine Norway spruce, 
40 or 50 years old, towering up from a base of thick branches which 
droop and fall to the very lawn, and hang oft" in those depending 
.curves, which make it such a fovorite with artists. Any one who 




The Norway tipruoe i''iL'. 

KmII rrnwn tiff 111 Slu'lley, V-i-2 ft. high ; diam. of the trunk, (!>< ft. ; nii.l "f ih». Iifiul, :;'.i li. 

{Sralf 1 ill. /'■■t^/lA 



* 



A WORD IN FAVOR OF EVERGREENS. 331 

wishes ocular demonstration of the truth of this, will do well to 
daguerreotype in his mind (for certainly, once seen, he can never 
forget them) the fine specimens on the lawn at the seat of Col. Per- 
kins, near Boston ; or two or three, still larger, and almost equally 
well developed, in the old Linnsean Garden of Mr. Winter, at Flush- 
ing, Long Island. 

The Norway spruce, abroad, is thought to grow rapidly only on 
soils somewhat damp. But this is not the case in America. We 
saw, lately, a young plantation of them of 10 or 12 years growth, in 
the ground of Capt. Forbes, of Milton Hill, near Boston, on very high 
and dry gravelly soil, many of which made leading shoots, last sea- 
son, of three or four feet. Their growth may be greatly promoted, 
as indeed may that of all evergreens, by a liberal top-dressing of 
ashes, applied early every spring or autumn. 

Little seems to be known in the United States, as yet, of the 
great value of the Norway spruce, for hedges* We have no doubt 
whatever that it will soon become the favorite plant for evergreen 
hedges, as the buckthorn and Osage orange are already for decidu- 
ous hedges in this country. So hardy as to grow every where, so 
strong, and bearing the shears so well, as to form an almost impene- 
trable wall of foliage, it is precisely adapted to thousands of situa- 
tions in the northern half of the Union, where an unfailing shelter, 
screen, and barrier, are wanted at all seasons, f 

* This plant may be had from six inches to two feet high at the English 
nurseries, at snch extremely low prices per 1000, that our nurserymen can 
well afford to import and grow it a year or two in their grounds, and sell it 
wholesale for hedges, at rates that will place it in the reach of all planters. 
Autumn is the safest season to import it from England ; as, if packed dry and 
shipped at that season, not ten plants in a thousand will die on the passage. 
We hope in a couple of years it will be obtainable, in large quantities, in 
every large nursery in America. We also observe that Elwanger & Barry, 
at Rochester, advertise it at the present time as a hedge plant. 

f " No tree," says the Arboretum Britannicum, " is better adapted than 
this for planting in narrow strips for shelter or seclusion : because, tliougli 
the trees in the interior of the strip may become naked below, yet those from 
the outside will retain their branches fi-om the ground upwai'ds, and effectu- 
ally prevent the eye from seeing through the screen. The tendency of the 
tree to pi-eserve its lower branches renders it an excellent protection to 



332 TREES. 

The Balsam Fir (Picea balsamca), or, as it is often called, the 
Balm of Gilcad Fir, is a neat, dark green evergreen tree, perhaps 
more generally employed for small grounds and plantations than any 
other by our gardeners. In truth, it is better adapted to small gar- 
dens, yards, or narrow lawns, than for landscape gardening on a 
large scale, as its beauty is of a formal kind ; and though the tree 
often grows to thirty or forty feet, its ajjpearance is never more 
pleasing than when it is from ten to fifteen or twenty feet high. 
The dark green hue of its foliage, which is pretty constant at all 
seasons, and the comparative ease with which it is transplanted, will 
always commend it to the ornamental improver. But as" a full 
grown tree, it is not to be compared for a moment, to any one of the 
three species of evergreens that we have already noticed ; since it 
becomes stiff and formal as it grows old, instead of graceful or pictu- 
resque, like the hemlock, white pine, or Norway spruce. Its chief 
value is for shrubberies, small gardens, or courtyards, in a formal or 
regular style. The facility of obtaining it, added to the excellent 
color of its foliage, and the great hardiness of the plant, induce us to 
give it a place among the four evergreens worthy of the universal 
attention of our ornamental planters. 

The Arbor Vitoe, so useful for hedges and screens, is, we find, so 

game; and for this purpose, and also for the sake of its verdiu-e during win- 
ter, when planted among deciduous trees and cut do^n to within five oi- six 
feet of the ground, it affords a very good and very beautiful imdergrowth. 
The Norway spruce bears the shears ; and as it is of rapid growth, it makes 
excellent hedges for shelter in nurseiy gardens. Such hedges are not unfre- 
quent in Switzerland, and also in Carpathia, and some parts of Baden and 
Bavaria. In 1844, there were spruce hedges in some gentlemen's gi'ounds 
in the neighborhood of Moscow, between 30 feet and 40 feet high. At the 
"Whim (near Edinburgh), a Norway spruce hedge was planted in 1823 with 
plants 10 feet high, put in 3 feet apart. The whole were cut down 5 feet, 
and afterwards trimmed in a regular conical shape. The hedge, thus formed, 
was first cut on Jan. 25, the year after planting ; and as the plants were 
found to sustain no injury, about the end of that month has been chosen for 
cutting it every year since. Every portion of this hedge is beautiful and 
green ; and the annual growths are very short, giving the surface of this 
hedge a fine, healthy ajrpearance." [This is an excellent illustration of the 
capacity of this tree for being sheared ; but good hedges are more easily and 
better formed by using plants about 18 inches or 2 feet high.] 



A WORD IN FAVOR OF EVERGREENS. 333 

rapidly becoming popular among our planters, that it needs little 
further commendation. 

Among the foreign evergreens worthy of attention, are the Chili 
pine (^Arauca7'ia), the Cedar of Lebanon, and the Deodar cedar, — 
three very noble trees, already described in previous pages, and 
worthy of attention in the highest degree. The two first have stood 
the past winter well, in our own grounds, and are likely to prove 
quite hardy here. 

For a rapid growing, bold, and picturesque evergreen, the Aus- 
trian pine [Finus Austriaca) is well deserving of attention. We 
find it remarkably hardy, adapting itself to all soils (though said to 
grow naturally in Austria on the lightest sands). A specimen here, 
grew nearly three feet last season ; and its bold, stift' foliage, is suffi- 
ciently marked to arrest the attention among all other evergreens. 

The Swiss stone pine [Firms cembra) we find also perfectly 
hardy in this latitude. This tree produces an eatable kernel, and 
though of comparatively slow growth, is certainly one of the most 
interesting of the pine family. The Italian stone pine, and the pinas- 
ter, are also beautiful trees for the climate of Philadelphia. The 
grand and lofty pines of California, the largest and loftiest evergreen 
trees in the world, are not yet to be found, except as small specimens 
here and there in the gardens of curious collectors in the United 
States. But we hope, with our continually increasing intercourse 
with western America, fi-esh seeds will be procured by our nursery- 
men, and grown abundantly for sale. The great Californian silver 
fir (Ficea grandis) grows 200 feet high, with cones 6 inches long, 
and fine silvery foliage ; and the noble silver fir (P. nohilis) is 
scarcely less striking. " I sjient three weeks," says Douglass, the 
botanical traveller, " in a forest composed of this tree, and, day by 
day, could not cease to admire it." Both these fine fir-trees grow in 
Northern California, where they cover vast tracts of land, and, along 
with other species of pine, form grand and majestic features in the 
landscape of that country. The English have been before us in in- 
troducing these natives of our western shores ; for we find them, 
(hough at high prices, now oftered for sale in most of the large 
nurseries in Great Britain. 

The most beautiful evergreen-tree in America, and, perhaps, — 



334 TREES. 

when foliage, flowers, and perfume are considered, — in the world, is 
the Magnolia grandiflora of our southern States. There, where it 
grows in the deep alluvial soil of some river valley, to the height of 
70 or 80 feet, clothed with its large, thick, deep green, glossy leaves, 
like those of a gigantic laurel, covered in the season of its bloom 
with large, pure white blossoms, that perfume the whole woods about 
it with their delicious odor ; certainly, it presents a spectacle of un- 
rivalled sylvan beauty. Much to be deplored is it, that north of 
New-York it will not bear the rigor of the winters, and that we are 
denied the pleasure of seeing it grow freely in the open air. At 
Philadelphia, it is quite hardy ; and in the Bartram Garden, at 
Landreth's, and in various private groimds near that city, there are 
fine specimens 20 or 30 feet high, growing without protection and 
blooming every year. 

Wherever the climate will permit the culture of this superb 
evergreen, the ornamental planter would be unpardonable, in our 
eyes, not to possess it in considerable abundance, llnire is a variety 
of it, originated from seed by the English, called the Exmouth Mag- 
nolia {M, g. exofninsis), which is rather hardier, and a much more 
abundant bloomer than the original species. 



VIII. 

THE CHINESE MAGNOLIAS. 

January, 1850. 

NATURE has bestowed tliat superb genus of trees, the magnolia, 
on the eastern sides of the two great continents — North Amer- 
ica and Asia. The United States gives us eight of all the known 
species, and China and Japan four or five. Neither Europe, Africa, 
nor South America afford a single indigenous species of magnolia. 

All the Chinese magnolias, excepting one (^M. fuscata), are 
hardy in this latitude, and are certainly among the most striking 
and ornamental objects in our pleasure-grounds and shrubberies in 
the spring. Indeed, during the month of April, and the early part 
of May, two of them, the white or conspicua, and Soulange's purple 
or soulanc/iana, eclipse every other floral object, whether tree or 
shrub, that the garden contains. Their numerous branches, thickly 
studded mth large flowers, most classically shaped, with thick kid- 
like petals, and rich spicy odor, wear an aspect of great novelty and 
beauty among the smaller blossoms of the more common trees and 
shrubs that blossom at that early time, and really fill the beholder 
with delight. 

The Chinese white magnolia {M. conspicua) is, in the effect of 
its blossoms, the most charming of all magnolias. The flowers, in 
color a pure creamy white, are produced in such abundance, that 
the tree, when pretty large, may be seen a great distance. The 
Chinese name, Gulan, hterally lily-tree, is an apt and expressive 
one, as the blossoms are not much unlike those of the white lily in 
size and shape, when fully expanded. Among the Chinese poets, 
they are considered the emblem of candor and beauty. 



336 



Tlie engraving is a very correct portrait of a fine specimen of 
this tree, standing on the lawn in front of our house, as it appears 
now, April 25th. Its usual period of blooming here is from the 5th 
to the 15th of this month. Last year there were three thousand 




Portrait of the Chinese White Magnolia in Mr. Downing's Grounds. 

blossoms open upon it at once. The tree has been planted about 
fourteen years, and is now twenty feet high. The branches spread 
over a space of fifteen feet in diameter, and the stem, near the 
ground, is eight inches in diauaeter. Its growth is highly sym- 
metrical. For the last ten years it has never, in a single season, 
failed to produce a fine display of blossoms, which are usually fol- 
lowed by a few seeds. Last year, however, it gave us quite a crop 



THE CHINESE MAGNOLIAS. 337 

of largo and fine seeds, from wliicli we hope to raise many 
plants.* 

This tree is perfectly hardy in this latitude, and we have never 
known one of its flower buds (which are quite large in autumn), or 
an inch of its wood, to be killed by the most severe winter. It is, 
however, grafted about a foot from the ground, on a stock of our 
western magnolia — sometimes called in Ohio the " cucumber-tree " 
(J/, acuminata). This perhaps renders it a little more hardy, and 
rather more vigorous than when grown on its own root^-as this 
native sort is the \erj best stock for all the Chinese sorts. It is so pro- 
pagated by budding in August ; and no doubt the spring budding 
recommended by Mr. Nelson, would be a highly successful mode. 

The next most ornamental Chinese magnolia, is Soulange's pur- 
ple [M. soulangiana). This is a hybrid seedling, raised by the late 
Chevalier Soulange Bodin, the distinguished French horticulturist. 
The habit of the tree is closely similar to that of the consjncua ; its 
blossoms, equally numerous, are rather larger, but the outside of the 
petals is finely tinged with pui-ple. It partakes of the character of 
both its parents — having the growth of magnolia conspicua, and 
the color of magnolia purpurea (or indeed a lighter shade of purple). 
Its term of blooming is also midway between that of these two spe- 
cies, being about a week later than that of -the white or Gulan 
magnolia. It is also perfectly hardy in this latitude. The purple 
Chinese magnolia (J/", purpurea) is a much dwarfer tree than the 
two preceding species. Indeed, it is properly a shrub, some six or 
eight feet in its growth in this latitude. Grafted on the " cucumber- 
tree," it would no doubt be more vigorous, and perhaps more hardy, 
for it is occasionally liable to have the ends of its branches slightly 
injured by severe winters here. Its flowers begin to open early in 
May, and on an old plant they continue blooming for six weeks, and 
indeed in a shaded situation, often for a considerable part of the 
summer. These blossoms are white within, of a fine dark lilac or 
purple on the outside, and quite fragrant like the others. This is 
the oldest Chinese magnolia known here, having been brought from 

"■ There is, we learn, a fine large specimen of this tree in the garden of 
Mr. William Davidson, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

22 



338 TREES. 

China to Europe in 1*790 — and it is now quite frequently seen in 
our gardens. 

There is another species (if. gracilis), the slender-growing mag- 
nolia, which very nearly resembles the purple flowering magnolia — 
and indeed only differs from it in its more slender growth, and nar- 
rower leaves and petals. 

If these noble flowering trees have a defect, it is one which is 
inseparable from the early period at which they bloom, viz., that of 
having few or no leaves when the blossoms are in their full perfec- 
tion. To remedy this, a very obvious mode is to plant them witli 
evergreen trees, so that the latter may form a dark green back- 
ground for the large and beautiful masses of magnolia flowers. 
The American arbor vitte, and hemlock, seem to us best fitted for 
this purpose. To those of our readers who do not already possess 
the Chinese magnolia, and more especially the two first named sorts, 
it is impossible to recommend two trees, that may now be had at 
most of our large nurseries, which are in every respect so ornamen- 
tal in their symmetrical growth, rich blossoms, and fine summer 
foliage, as the Chinese magnolias. 



IX. 



THE NEGLECTED AMERICAN PLANTS. 

May, 1851. 

IT is an old and familiar saying that a prophet is not without 
honor, except in his own country, and as we were making our 
way this spring through a dense forest in the State of New Jersey, 
we were tempted to apply tliis saying to things as well as people. 
How many grand and stately trees there are in our woodlands, that 
are never heeded by the arboriculturist in planting his lawns and 
pleasure-gromids ; how many rich and beautiful shrubs, that might 
embellish our walks and add variety to our shrubberies, that arc 
left to wave on the mountain crag, or overhang the steep side of 
some forest valley ; how many rare and curious flowers that bloom 
unseen amid the depths of silent woods, or along the margin of 
wild water-courses. Yes, our hot-houses are full of the heaths of 
New Holland and the Cape, our parterres are gay with the ver- 
benas and fuchsias of South America, our pleasure-grounds are 
studded with the trees of Europe and Northern Asia, while the 
rarest spectacle in an American country place, is to see above three 
or four native trees, rarer still to find any but foreign shrubs, and 
rarest of all, to find any of our native wild flowers. 

Nothing strikes foreign horticulturists and amateurs so much, 
as this apathy and indift'erence of Americans, to the beautiful sylvan 
and floral products of their own coimtry. An enthusiastic collector 
in J>elgium first made us keenly sensible of this condition of our 
countrymen, but Summer, in describing the difliculty he had in 
procuring from anv of his corresjjondents, here, American seeds or 



340 TREES. 

plants — even of well known and tolerably abundant species, by tell- 
ing us that amateurs and nurserymen who annually import from 
him every new and rare exotic that the richest collections of Europe 
possessed, could scarcely be prevailed upon to make a search for 
native American plants, ftir more beautiful, which grow in the woods 
not ten miles from their own doors. Some of them were wholly 
ignorant of such plants, except so far as a familiarity with their 
names in the books may be called an acquaintance. Others knew 
them, but considered them " wild j^lants," and therefore, too little 
deserving of attention to be worth the trouble of collecting, even for 
curious foreigners. " And so," he continued, " in a country of azaleas, 
kalmias, rhododendrons, cypripediums, magnolias and nysas, — 
the loveliest flowers, shrubs, and trees of temperate climates, — you 
never put them in your gardens, but send over the water every year 
for thousands of dollars worth of English larches and Dutch hya- 
cinths. Voila le goiU Mepnblicain .^" 

In truth, we felt that we quite deserved the sweeping sarcasm of 
our Belgian friend. We had always, indeed, excused ourselves for 
the well known neglect of the riches of our native Flora, by saying 
that what we can see any day in the woods, is not the thing by 
which to make a garden distinguished — and that since all mankind 
have a passion for novelty, where, as in a fine foreign tree or shrub, 
both beauty and novelty are combined, so much the greater is the 
pleasure experienced. But, indeed, one has only to go to England, 
where " American plants " are the fashion, (not undeservedly, too,) 
to learn that he knows very little about the beauty of American 
plants. The difference between a grand oak or magnolia, or tulip- 
tree, grown with all its graceful and majestic development of head, 
in a park where it has nothing to interfere with its expansion but 
sky and air, and the same tree shut up in a forest, a quarter of a 
mile high, with only a tall gigantic mast of a stem, and a tuft of 
foliage at the top, is the difference between the best bred and highly 
cultivated man of the day, and the best buffalo hunter of the Rocky 
Mountains, with his sinewy body tattooed and tanned till you scarcely 
know what is the natural color of the skin. A person accustomed 
to the wild Indian only, might think he knew perfectly well what a 
man is — and so indeed he does, if you mean a red man. But the 



THE NEGLECTED AMERICAN PLANTS. 341 

" ci\'ilizee " is not more different from the aboriginal man of the 
forest, than the cukivated and perfect garden-tree or shrub (gi-ant- 
ing always that it takes to civilization — which some trees, like In- 
dians, do not), than a tree of the pleasure-grounds differs from a 
tree of the woods. 

Perhaps the finest revelation of this sort in England, is the 
clumjjs and masses of our mountain laurel, Kahnia latifuUa, and 
our azaleas and rhododendrons, which embellish the English plea- 
sure-groxmds. In some of the great countr3'--seats, whole acres of 
lawn, kept like velvet, are made the ground-work upon which these 
masses of the I'ichest foliaged and the gayest flowering shrubs are 
embroidered. Each mass is planted in a round or oval bed of deep, 
rich, sandy mould, in which it attains a luxuriance and perfection 
of form and foliage, almost as new to an American as to a Sand- 
wich Islander. The Germans make avenues of our tulip-trees, and 
in the South of France, one finds more planted magnolias in the 
gardens, than there are, out of' the woods, in all the United States. 
It is thus, by seeing them away from home, where their merits are 
better appreciated, and more highly developed, that one learns for 
the first time what our gardens have lost, by our having none of 
these " American plants " in them. 

The subject is one which should be pursued to much greater 
length than we are able to follow it in the present article. Our 
woods and swamps are full of the most exquisite plants, some of 
which would greatly embellish even the smallest garden. But it is 
rattier to one single feature in the pleasure-grounds, that we would 
at this moment direct the attention, and that is, the introduction of 
two broad-leaved evergreen shrubs, that are abundant in every part 
of the middle States, and that are, nevertheless, seldom to be seen 
in any of our gardens or nurseries, from one end of the country to 
the other. The defect is the more to be deplored, because our orna- 
mental plantations, so far as they are evergreen, consist almost en- 
tirely of pines and firs — all narrow-leaved evergreens — f;ir inferior 
in richness of foliage, to those we have mentioned. 

The Native Holly grows from Long Island to Florida, and is 
quite abundant in the woods of New Jersey, Maryland, and Vir- 
ginia. It forms a shrub or small tree, vaiying from four to forty 



342 • TREES. 

feet in lieight — clothed -with foliage and berries of the same orna- 
mental character as the European holly — except tliat the leaf is a 
shade lighter in its green. The plant too, is perfectly hardy, even 
in the climate of Boston — while the European holly is quite too 
tender for open air culture in the middle States — notwithstanding 
that peaches ripen here in orchards, and in England only on walls. 

The American Laurel, or Kalmia, is too well known in all parts 
of the country to need any description. And what new shrub, we 
would ask, is there — whether from the Himmalayas or the Andes, 
whether hardy or tender — which surpasses the American laurel, 
when in perfection, as to the richness of its dark green foliage, or 
the exquisite delicacy and beauty of its gay masses of flowers ? If 
it came from the highlands of Chili, and were recently introduced, 
it would bring a guinea a plant, and no grumbling ! 

Granting all this, let our readers who wisli to decorate their 
grounds with something 7iew and beautiful, undertake now, in this 
month of May (for these plants are best transplanted aftej' tliey have 
commenced a new growth), to plant some laurels and hollies. If 
they, would do this quite successfully, they must not stick them here 
and there among other shrubs in the common border — but prepare 
a bed or clump, in some cool, rather shaded aspect — a north slope 
is better than a southern one — where the subsoil is rather damp 
than diy. The soil should be sandy or gravelly, with a mixture of 
black earth well decomposed, or a cart-load or two of rotten leaves 
from an old wood, and it should be. at least eighteen or twenty 
inches deep, to retain the moisture in a long drought. A bed of 
these line evergreens, made in this way, will be a feature in the 
grounds, which, after it has been well established for a few years, will 
convince you far better than any words of ours, of the neglected 
beauty of our American plants. 



X. 



THE ART OF TRANSPLANTING TREES. 

November, 1848. 

WE must have a little*familiar conversation, tins month, on the 
subject of TRANSPLANTING TREES. Oui' remarks will be in- 
tended, of course, for the uninitiated ; not for those who have grown 
wise with experience. 

That there is a difficulty in transplanting trees, the multitude 
of complaints and inquiries which beset us, most abundantly 
prove. That it is, on the other hand, a very easy and simple pro- 
cess, the uniform success of skilful cultivators, as fiilly establishes. 

The difficulty then, lies, of course, in a want of knowledge, on 
the part of the unsuccessful practitioner. This want of knowledge 
rday be stated, broadly, under two heads, viz., ignorance of the 
organization of trees, and ignorance of the necessity oi feeding 
them. 

The first point is directly the most important, for the very pro- 
cess of transplanting is founded upon it. Since this art virtually 
lionsists in removing, by violence, a tree from one spot to another, 
it is absolutely necessary to know how much violence we may use 
without defeating the ends in view. A common soldier will, with 
his sword, cut oft a man's limb, in such a manner that he takes his 
life away with it. A skilful surgeon, will do the same thing, in or- 
dei' to preserve life. There are, also, manifestly two ways of trans- 
planting trees. 

That the vital princij)le is a wonderful and mysterious power, 
even in plants, cannot be denied. But because certain trees, as 



344 TREES. 

poplars and willows, have enough of this power to enable pieces of 
them to grow, Avhen stuck into the ground, like walking sticks, 
without roots, it does not foUoAV that all other trees will do the 
same. There are some animals which swallow prussic acid with 
impunity ; but it is a dangerous experiment for all other animals. 
What we mean to suggest, therefore, is, that he who would be a 
successful transplanter, must have an almost religious respect for the 
roots of trees. He must look upon them as the collectors of rev- 
enue, the wardens of the ports, the great viaducts of all solids and 
fluids that enter into the system of growth and verdure, which con- 
stitute the tree proper. Oh, if one could only teach hewers of 
" tap-roots" and drawers of " laterals," the value of the whole system 
of roots, — every thing, in short,, that looks like, and is, a radicle^ — 
then would nine tenths of the difficulty of transplanting be quite 
overcome, and the branches might be left pretty much to them- 
selves ! 

Now a tree, to be perfectly transplanted, ought to be taken up 
with its whole system of roots entire. Thus removed and carefully 
replanted, at the proper dormant season, it need not suffer a loss of 
the smallest bough, and it would scarcely feel its removal. Such 
things are done every year, with this result, by really clever .ind ex- 
perienced gardeners. We have seen apple-trees, large enough to 
bear a couple of bushels of fruit, which were removed a dozen miles, 
in the autumn, and made a luxuriant growth, and bore a fine crop 
the next season. But the workman who handled them had gone 
to the root of the business he undertook. 

The fact, however, cannot be denied, that in common practice 
there are very few such perfect workmen. Trees (especially in the 
nurseries) are often taken up in haste, at a loss of a third, or even 
sometimes half of their roots, and when received by the transplanter, 
there is nothing to be done but to make the best of it. 

In order to do this, we must look a little in advance, in order to 
understand the philosophy of growth. In a few words, then, it 
may be assumed that in a healthy tree, there is an exact " balance 
of power " between the roots and the branches. The first may be 
said to represent the stomach, and the second the lungs and per- 
spiratory system. Tlie first collects food for the tree ; tlu^ other 



THE ART OF TRANSPLANTING TREES. 345 

elaborates and prepai-es this food. You can, therefore, no more 
make a violent attack upon the roots, without the leaves and 
branches suffering harm by it, than you can greatly injure the 
stomach of an animal without disturbing the vital action of all the 
•rest of its system. 

In trees and plants, perhaps, this proportional dependence is 
still greater. For instance, the leaves, and even the bark of a tree, 
continually act as the perspiratory system of that tree. Every clear 
day, in a good sized tree, they give off many pounds weight of 
fluid matter, — being the more watery portion of the element ab- 
sorbed by the roots. Now it is plain, that if you destroy, in trans- 
planting, one-third of the roots of a tree, you have, as soon as the 
leaves expand, a third moi'e lungs than you can keep in action. The 
perspiration is vastly beyond what the roots can make good ; and 
unless the subject is one of unusual vitality, or the weather is such 
as to keep down perspiration by constant dampness, the leaves must 
flag, and the tree partly or wholly perish. 

The remedy, in cases where you must plant a tree whose roots 
have been mutilated, is (after carefully paring off the ends of the 
wounded roots, to enable them to heal more speedily) to restore the 
" balance of power " by bringing down the perspiratory system — in 
other words, the branches, to a corresponding state ; that is to say, 
in theory, if your tree has lost a fourth of its roots, take off an 
. equal amount of its branches. 

This is the correct theory. The practice^ however, differs with 
the climate where the transplanting takes place. This is evident, if 
we remember that the perspiration is governed by the amount of sun- 
shine and dry air. The more of these, the greater the demand 
made for moisture, on the roots. Hence, the reason why delicate 
cuttings strike root readily under a bell glass, and why transplanting 
is as easy as sleeping in rainy weather. In England, therefore, it is 
much easier to transplant large trees than on the continent, or in 
this country ; so easy, that Sir Henry Stewart made parks of fifty 
feet trees with his transplanting machine, almost as easily and as 
quickly as Capt. Bragg makes a park of artillery. But he who 
tries this sort of fancy work in the bright sunshine of the United 
States, will find that it is like undertaking to besiege Gibraltar with 



346 TREES. 

cross-bows. The trees start into leaf, and all promises well ; but 
unless under very favorable circumstances, the leaves beggar the 
roots, by their demands for more sap, before August is half over. 

We mean to be understood, therefore, that we think it safest in 
practice, in this part of the world, when you are about to plant a; 
tree deprived of part of its roots, to reduce the branches a little 
below this same proportion. To reduce them to precisely an equal 
proportion, would preserve the balance, if the ground abeut the 
roots could be kept uniformly moist. But, with the chances of its 
becoming partially dry at times, you must guard against the leaves 
flagging, by diminishing their number at the first start. As every 
leaf and branch, made after growth fairly commences, will be accom- 
panied simultaneously by new roots, the same will then be provided 
for as a matter of course. 

The neatest way of reducing the top of a tree, in order not to 
destroy its natural symmetry,* is to shorten-back the young growth 
of the previous season. We know a most successful planter who 
always, under all circumstances, shortens-back the previous year's 
wood, on transplanting, to one bud ; that is, he cuts off the whole 
summer's growth down to a good plump bud, just above the pre- 
vious year's wood. But this is not always necessary. A few inches 
(where the growth has been a foot or more) will usually be all that 
is necessary. It is only necessary to watch the growth of a trans- 
planted tree, treated in this way, with one of the same kind un> 
pruned; to compare the clean, vigorous new shoots, that will be 
made the first season by the former, with the slender and feeble 
ones of the latter, to be perfectly convinced of the value of the 
practice of shortening-in transplanted trees. 

The necessity of a proper supply of food for trees, is a point 
that we should not have to insist upon, if starving trees had the 
power of crying out, hke starving pigs. Unluckily, they have not ; 
and, therefore, inhuman and ignorant cultivators will feed their 
cattle, and let their orchards starve to death. Now it is peifectly 
demonstrable, to a man who lias the use of his eyes, that a tree can 

* Cutting off large branches at random, often quite spoils the natui-al 
habit of a tree. Shortening-back, all over the head, does not affect it in the 
least* 



THE ART OF TRANSPLANTING TREES. 347 

he fatted to repletion, that it may be made to grow tliiiftily and 
Avell, or that it may be absohitely starved to death, as certainly as 
a Berkshire. It is not enough (unless a man has rich bottom 
lands) to plant a tree in order to have a satisfactory gi-owth, and a 
speedy gratification in its fruit and foliage. You must provide a 
supply of food for it at the outset, and renew it as often as necessary 
during its lifetime. He who does this, will have five times the 
profit and ten times the satisfaction of the careless and sluggish 
man, who grudges the labor and expense of a little extra" feeding 
for the roots. The cheaj^est and best food for fruit trees, with most 
farmers, is a mixture of swamp muck and stable manure, which has 
laid for some two or three months together. The best manure, 
perhaps, is the same muck, or black peat, reduced to an active state 
with wood ashes. A wheelbarrow load of this compost, mixed .with 
the soil, for each small transplanted tree, will give it a supply of 
food that will produce a growth of leaf and young wood that will 
do one's heart good to look upon. 

Any well decomposed animal manure may be freely used in 
planting trees ; always thoroughly incorporating it with the whole 
of the soil that has been stirred, and not throwing it directly about 
the roots. 

There are, however, some improvident men who will plant trees 
without having any food at hand, except manure in a crude state. 
" What shall we do," they ask, " when we have only fresh stable 
manure ?" Perhaps we ought to answer — " wait till you have some- 
thing better." But since they will do something at once, or not at 
all, we must give them a reply ; and this is, make your hole twice 
as large and twice as deep as you would if you had suitable com- 
post. Then bury part of the fresh manure heloio the depth where 
the roots will at first be, mixing.it with the soil, treading the whole 
down well to prevent settling, and covering the whole with three 
inches of earth, upon which to plant the tree. Mix the rest with 
the soil, and put it at the sides of the hole, keeping the manure 
both at the sides and bottom, far enough away, that the roots of the 
tree shall not reach it for two months. Then plant the tree in some 
of the best good soil you can procure. 

One of the safest and best o-eueral fertilizers that can be used in 



348 TREES. 

transplanting at all times, and in all soils, is leached -wood aslies. A 
couple of shovelfuls of this may be used (intermixed with soil) 
about the roots of every tree, while replanting it, with great advan- 
tage. Lime and potash, the two largest inorganic constituents of 
all trees, are most abundantly supplied by wood ashes ; and hence 
its utility in all our soils. 

We have, previously, so largely insisted on the importance of 
trenching and deepening the soil, in all cases where trees are to be 
planted, that tve trust our readers know that that is our platform. 
If any man vsishes to know how to improve the growth of any tree 
in the climate of the United States, the first word that we have to 
say to him, is to " trench your soil." If your soil is exhausted, if 
your soil is thin and' poor, if it is dry, and you suffer from drought, 
the i-emedy is the same ; deepen it. If you have much to do, and 
economy must be considered, use the subsoil plough ; if a few trees 
only are to be planted in the lawn or garden, use the spade. Always 
remember that the roots of trees will rarely go deeper than the 
" natural soil," (say from 10 to 20 inches on the average,) and that 
by trenching two or three feet deep you make a double soil, and 
therefore enlai'ge your " area of freedom " for the roots, and give them 
tmce as much to feed upon. K you are a beginner, and are skepti- 
cal, make a trial of a few square yards, plant a tree in it, and then 
judge for yourself. 



XL 



ON TRANSPLANTING LARGE TREES. 

January, 1850. 

IN a country where tliousands of new rural homes are every year 
being made, how many times do the new proprietors sigh for 
LARGE TREES. " Ah, if oue could only have half a dozen, — two or 
three, — nay, even a single oue of the beautiful elms that waste their 
beauty by the roadside of some unfrequented lane, or stands unap- 
preciated in some fjirmer's meadow, who grudges it ground room ! " 

" And is there no successful way of transplanting such trees ? " 
inquires the imj^atient owner of a new site, who feels that there 
should be some special process — some 25atent regenerator of that 
forest growth, which his predecessors have so cruelly despoiled, — his 
predecessors, to whom cord-wood was of more consequence than the 
charms of sylvan landscape. 

Though there is great delight in raising a tree from a liHputian 
specimen no higher than one's knee, — nay, even from the seed 
itself, — in feeling, as it grows upward and heavenward, year by year, 
till the little thing that had to be sheltered with rods, stuck about it, 
to prevent its being overlooked and trodden upon, has so far over- 
topped us that it now shelters and gratefully overshadows us ; though, 
as we have said, there is gi-eat delight in this, yet it must be part 
and parcel of other delights. To a pei'son who has just " settled " 
upon a bare field, where he has only a new house and a " ^^ew " of 
his neighborhood to look at, we must not be too eloquent about the 
pleasure of raising oaks from the acorn. He is too much in the 
condition of the hungry man, who is told to be resigned, for there 



350 TREES. 

will be no liunger in heaven. It is the present state of affairs that, 
at this moment, lies nearest to him. How, in other words, shall a 
field, as bare as a desert, be at once enlivened with a few large trees? 

Some ten or fifteen years ago, an ingenious Scotch baronet — 
Sir Henry Stuart — published a goodly octavo to the world, which 
apparently solved the whole mystery. And it was not all theory ; 
foi' the baronet's own park was actually planted with forest trees of 
various kinds — oaks, ashes, elms, beeches, of all sizes, from twenty- 
five to sixty feet in height, and with fine heads. The thing was not 
only done, but the park was there, growing in the finest luxuriance ; 
and half a dozen years after its creation, arboriculturists of every 
degree, from Sir Walter Scott down to humble ditchers, went to 
look at it, and pronounced it good, and the thing itself altogether 
satisfactory. 

Sir Henry Stuart's process, though it fills a volume, may be com- 
pressed into a paragraph. First, the greatest 7'espectfor the roots of 
a tree, and some knowledge of the functions of the roots and branches ; 
second, a pair of large wheels, with a strong axle and jiole ; third, 
practical skill and patience in executing the work. 

A great many disciples had Sir Henry ; and we, among the 
number, bore our share in the purchase of a pair of wheels, and the 
cost of mo\ang some large trees, that for- the most part failed. And 
now, that Sir Henry's mode has rather fallen into disrepute, and is 
looked upon as an impracticable thing for this country, it may be 
time •well employed to look a little into the cause of its failure, and 
also to inquire if it is wholly and entirely a failure for us. 

Undeniably, then, the main cause of the failure, here, of the 
Scotch mode of transj)lanting, lies in the difference of climate. He 
who knows how much the success of a newly planted tree, of small 
size, depends on the moist state of the atmosphere, when it begins 
to grow in its new position, can easily see that its importance is 
vastly greater to a large tree than a small one. It is the thirst of a 
giant and the sufferings of a giant, accustomed to a large supply of 
food, compared with that of a little child, which may be fed by the 
spoonful. And when we compare the moisture of that foggy and 
weeping climate of Scotia, with the hot, bright, dry atmosphere of 
the United States, we can easily see tliat a ti-ee at all stubborn. 



ON TRANSPLANTING LARGE TREES. 351 

moved by Sir Henry himself, and inclined to grow, would actually 
perish from the dryness of the air in mid-summer in our middle 
States. And such we have found by experiment is actually the case 
with trees of many kinds, when planted of large size. 

We say of many kinds ; for repeated experiment has proved that 
;i few kinds of hardy native trees may be transplanted, even in this 
•limate, with entire success by the Stuart method, or any other that 
will sufficiently preserve the entireness of the roots. 

Fortunately, the two kinds of trees adapted for removal, when 
of large size, are the two most popular and most valuable for orna- 
mental purposes. We mean the elms and the maples. Few forest 
trees have more dignity and grace ; none have more beauty of out- 
line than our weeping elms and sugar maples, to say nothing of the 
other varieties of both these trees. And if the possessor of a new 
place can adorn it with a dozen or two fine specimens of these, of a 
size to give immediate shelter and effect to the neighborhood of his 
house, he can then afford to be patient, and enjoy the more gradual 
process of coaxing smaller specimens into luxuriant maturity. 

The reason why oaks, nut trees, chestnuts, tulip trees, and the 
like, when transplanted of large size, do not succeed here, where 
elms and maples do, is that the former unluckily have a few strong, 
or tap-roots, running downwards, while the latter have great masses 
of fibrous roots, running near the surface of the ground. 

Now a tap-rooted tree, even when small, has a much less amia- 
ble disposition when dug up, and asked to grow again, than a fibrous 
rooted tree ; because, indeed, having fewer small roots, it has only 
one mouth to supply its hunger, and to gain strength to go on 
again, where the other has fift}\ Ilencq, though it may, under very 
favorable circumstances, like the climate of Scotland, overcome all 
and succeed, yet it is nearly a death struggle to do so in our dry 
midsummer air.* It is not worth while to waste one's time, there- 
fore, in transplanting large oaks, or hickories, in this hemisphere. 

And now, having reduced our class of available subjects to elms 

* We have found that large oaks, when transplanted, frequently live 
through the first year, but die the second, from their inability to contend 
aitainst the climate and make new roots. 



352 TREES. 

and maples, let us inquire what is the best method of transplanting 
them. 

The first point regards the selection of the trees themselves. 
And here Sir Henry Stuart, or his book, would teach many planters 
a piece of real tree-craft which they are ignorant of ; and that is, 
that there is as much dift'erence, in point of hardiness and power of 
endurance, between a tree taken out of the woods, where it is shel- 
tered by other trees, and one taken from the open field, where it 
stands alone, exposed to the fullest influences of wind and storm, 
light and sunshine, as there is between a languid drawing-room fop 
and a robust Green Mountain boy. For this good and suflScient 
reason, always choose a tree that grows alone, in an open site, and 
in a soil that will allow you to retain a considerable ball of roots 
entire.* 

" How large an elm or maple may we transplant ? " Our 
answer to this question might be, as large as you can afford — but 
for the great difficulty of managing a very large tree when out of 
the ground. That it may be done, is now a well-established fact ; 
and hence, the only question is as to its ex2:>ediency.f Trees from 
20 to 30 feet in height, we conceive to be, on the whole, the most 
suitable size. 

There are two modes now in considerable use for moving trees 
of this size ; the first is the Stuart mode, to be j^erformed in spring 
or autumn ; the second, the frozen-ball mode, to be performed in 
winter. 

The Stuart mode is the best for trees of the largest size. In 
this mode, the roots are laid bare with the greatest care ; every root, 

* Tlie best subjects, when tliey can be liad (as they frequently may in the 
neighborhood of towns), are trees planted some ten or fifteen years before, 
in some neighbor's grounds, where they require being taken out (if you can 
persuade him of it), because originally planted too thickly. 

f One of the most successful instances of this kind of transplanting, in 
this country, is at the cottage residence of Thomas Perkins, Esq., at Brook- 
line, near Boston. An avenue of considerable extent may be seen thei'e, 
comriosed of elms thirty to forty feet high, beautifully shaped, and having 
the effect of full-grown trees. They were removed more than a fourth of a 
mile, from the seat of Col. Perkins, with perfect success, and we believe by 
the Stuart mode. 



ON TRANSPLANTING LARGE TREES. 353 

as far as possible, being preserved. The wheels are then brought 
up to the tree, the axle made fast to the body (with a stuffing be- 
tween to prevent injury to the bark), and the pole is tied securely 
to the trunk and branches higher up. A long rope, or ropes, being 
now fixed to the pole and the branches, the pole serves as a lever, 
and the top is thus brought down, while the mass of roots is sup- 
ported upon the axle. After the tree is properly balanced on the 
carriage, horses are attached, and it is transported to the hole pre- 
pared for it. 

This mode is one which requires a good deal of practical skill 
in the management of roots, and in the Avhole art of transplanting, 
though great effects may be produced by it in the hands of skilful 
workmen.* ' 

Transplanting with a frozen ball is a good deal practised in this 
country, and is much the cheapest and most perfect mode for trees 
of moderately large size ; that is to say, trees from 20 to 30 feet 
high, and whose trunks measure from 6 inches to a foot in diame- 
ter. Trees of this proportion are indeed the most suitable for the 
embellishment of new places, since they unite immediate beauty of 
effect with comparative cheapness in removal, while it requires less 
mechanical skill to remove them. 

The process of removing a tree with a frozen ball is a simple 
one, especially if jjerformed in the early part of winter, while there 
is yet but little frost in the ground. In the first place, the hole 
should be made ready,f and a pile of suitable soil laid by the 
side of it and covered with straw, to prevent its being frozen when 
wanted. 

Then a trench is dug all round the tree, in order to leave a ball 

* We cannot but express our surprise that some of our exceedingly in- 
genious and clever Yankee teamsters liave never taken up, as a business, the 
art of transplanting large trees. To a person competent to the task, with 
his machine, his oxen, and his trained set of hands, an abundance of occu- 
pation would be offered by wealthy improvers of new places, to whom the 
cost of a dozen elms, forty feet high, at a remunerating price, would be a 
matter of trifling moment. 

f Especially should the soil, in the bottom of the hole, be well trenched 
and manured. 

23 



354 TREES. 

of earth from six to eight feet in diameter. The trench should be 
wide enough to allow the operator gradually to undermine the 
ball of roots, so that at last the tree just stands, as it were, upon one 
leg. In this condition let the ball be exposed to a sharp frosty 
night, that it may freeze quite firmly. The next day you approach 
the subject with a common low shed, or sto7ie boat, drawn by a pair 
or two of oxen ; (or if the tree measures only six inches, a pair of 
horses will do.) The tree with its ball is now thrown to one side ; 
the sled is then placed under the ball on the opposite side ; then the 
tree is righted, the ball placed upon the middle of the sled, and the 
whole drawn out of the hole. A teamster of very little practice will 
now see at a glance how to balance his load upon the sled ; and 
once on level ground, it is no difficult matter to drag the whole for 
half a mile or more to its final location. 

After the tree is placed in the hole previously prepared for it, 
the good soil must be closely pressed around the ball, and the trunk 
supported in its place, till after the equinoctial rains, by stakes or 
braces.* 

There is no mode for the removal of trees in which they Avill 
suffer so little as this ; partly because the roots are maintained more 
entire than in any other way, and partly because the soil is not 
even loosened or disturbed about a large portion of the fibres. 
Hence, though a slight reduction of the top is advisable, even in 
this case, to balance tlie loss of some of the long roots, it is not ab- 
solutely needful, and in no case is the symmetry of the head de- 
stroyed ; and the possessor of the newly moved tree has the satis- 
faction of gazing upon a goodly show of foliage and shade as soon 
as June comes round again. 

Those of our readers who are groaning for the want of trees, will 
see by these remarks that their case is by no means desperate ; that, 
on the contrary, we think it a very hopeful one ; and that, in short, if 
they can afford to expend from two to ten dollars per tree, and can 
get at the right kind of subjects in their neighborhood, they may, 

* We may here add, that besides elms and maples, this mode is equally 
successful with evergreens of all kinds. We liave seen white pines and firs, 
of twenty feet high, moved so perfectly in this manner, that they never 
showed the least mark of the change of place. 



ON TRANSPLANTING LARGE TREES. 355 

if they choose, transform their premises from a bleak meadow to a 
wood as thick as " Vallombrosa's shade," before the spring opens. 

And now, one word more to those who, having trees, are impa- 
tient for luxuriant growth ; who desire to see annual shoots of six 
feet instead of twenty inches ; and Avho do not so much care what 
it costs to make a few trees in a favorite site advance rapidly, pro- 
vided it is possible. What they wish to know is, can the thing be 
done ? 

We answer, yes. To make a hardy tree* grow three "times as 
fast in a summer as it usually does (we speak now, of course, of 
trees in a common soil), it is only necessary that it should have 
three times the depth for the roots to grow in, and three times the 
amount of food for its consumption while growing. 

And, first of all, for very rapid and luxuriant growth in our cli- 
mate, the soil must be deep — deep — deep. Three feet of trenching 
or subsoiling is imperative ; and we have seen astonishing results, 
where places for trees twelve feet broad and five feet deep have been 
prepared for them. If any one of our readers mil take the trouble 
to watch an elm-tree making its growth next season, he will notice 
that, if the season is moist and cool, the shoots will continue to 
lengthen till past midsummer ; but if, on the contrary, the season is 
a dry one, all growth will be over by the middle of June. Why 
does the growth cease so early in the season ? Simply because the 
moment the moisture in the soil fails, and the roots feel the effects 
of the sun, the terminal buds form at the end of each shoot, and 
then all growth for the season is over. Deepen the soil, so that the 
roots go on growing in its cool, moist depths, and the tops will go 
on lengthening, despite the power of the sun ; nay, so long as there 
is moisture, by the help of it. And hence, the length of time which 
a tree wiU continue to grow, depends mainly upon the depth of the 
soil in which it is planted. 

If any skeptic wishes to be convinced of the effects of deep and 

* We say a hardy tree, because every arlioriculturist knows that to pro- 
mote extra luxuriance, in a tree not perfectly hardy, increases its tenderness, 
because the wood will not ripen well, like short jointed growth ; but thei'e 
is no fear of this with elms, oaks, maples, or any perfectly hardy native 
trees. 



356 « TREES. 

rich soil upon the hixuriance of a plant, he has only to step into a 
vinery, like that in Clinton Point, and see, with his own eyes, the 
same sorts of grape, which in common soil, even under glass, usu- 
ally grow but six or eight feet high in a season, and with stems like 
pipe-stems, growing twenty or thirty feet in a single season, with 
stems of the thickness of a man's thumb, and ripening delicious 
fruit in fourteen months after being planted. Now, exactly the 
same effect may be produced by deepening and enriching the soil, 
where the elm or any other hardy ornamental tree is to be planted ; 
and we put it thus plainly to some of our readers, who are impa- 
tient of the growth of trees, that they may, if they choose, by a 
little extra pay, have more growth in three years than their neigh- 
bors do in ten. 



XII. 

A CHAPTER ON HEDGES. 

February, 1847. 
" rf'^HERE was a certain liouseholder wliicli planted a vineyard, 
-L and hedged it round about." What better proof can we give, 
than this sacred and familiar passage, of the antiquity, as well as 
the wisdom, of making hedges. But indeed the custom is older 
than the Christian era. Homer tells us that when Ulysses, after his 
great deeds, returned to seek his father Laertes, he found the old 
king in his garden, preparing the ground for a hedge, while his ser- 
vants were absent, 

" To search the woods for sets of flowery thorn, 
Then- orchard bounds to strengthen and adorn." 

Pope's Odtssey. 

The lapse of 3000 years has not taught the husbandman or the 
owners of orchards and gardens, in modern times, any fiiirer or bet- 
ter mode of enclosing their lands, than this most natural and simple 
one of hedging it round about. Fences of iron or wood, carefully 
fashioned by art, are fitting and appropriate in their proper places 
— that is, in the midst of houses and great cities — but in the open, 
free expanse of country landscape, the most costly artificial barrier 
looks hard and incongruous beside the pleasant verdure of a live 
hedge. 

Necessity, it is often said, knows, no law, and the emigrant set- 
tler on new lands, where stone and timber are so abundant as to be 



358 TREES, 

the chief obstacles to the progress of his labors on the soil, must 
needs employ for a long time, rail fences, board fences, and stone 
walls. But in most of the Atlantic States these materials are already 
becoming so scarce, that hedges will soon be the most economical 
mode of enclosing grounds. In the prairie lands of the west, hedges 
must also, from the original and prospective scarcity of timber, soon 
be largely resorted to for all permanently divided grounds — such as 
gardens and orchards. 

Touching the charms which a good hedge has for the eye, they 
are so striking, and so self-evident, that our readers hardly need any 
elaborate inventory from us. That clever and extraordinary man, 
William Cobbett, who wrote books on gardening, French grammar 
and political economy, with equal success, said, in his usual em- 
phatic manner, " as to the beauty of a fine hedge, it is impossible 
for any one who has not seen it, to form an idea ; contrasted with a 
wooden, or even a brick fence, it is like the land of Canaan com- 
pared with the deserts of Arabia ! " 

The advantages of a hedge over the common fence, besides its 
beauty, are its durability, its perfect protection against man and 
beast, and the additional value ii confers upon the land which it 
encloses. A fence of wood, or stone, as commonly made, is, at the 
best, but a miserable and tottering affair ; soon needing repairs, 
which are a constant drain upon the purse ; often liable to be broken 
down by trespassing Philistines ; and, before many years, decaying, 
or so far falling down, as to demand a complete renewal. Now a 
good hedge, made of two plants we shall recommend, will last for 
ever ; it is an '• everlasting fence," at least in any acceptation of the 
Avord known to our restless and changing countrymen. When once 
fully grown, the small trouble of annual trimming costs not a whit 
more than the average expense of repairs on a wooden fence, while 
its freshness and verdure are renewed with every vernal return of the 
" flower and the leaf." 

As a protection to the choicer products of the soil, which tempt 
the spoiler of the orchard and the garden, nothing is so efficient as 
a good hedge. It is like an impregnable fortress, neither to be 
scaled, broken through, nor climbed over. F(jw]s will not fly over 
it, because they fear to alight upon its top ; and men and beasts are 



A CHAPTER ON HEDGES. 359 

not likely to make more than one attempt to force its gi-een walls. 
It shows a fair and leafy shield to its antagonist, but it has thou- 
sands of concealed arrows ready at a moment of assault, and there 
are few creatures, however bold, who care to " come to the scratch " 
twice with such a foe. Indeed a well made and perfect thorn 
hedge is so thick that a bird cannot fly through it. 

" The hedge was thick as is a castle wall, 
So that who list without to stand or go, 
Though he would all the day pry to and fro, 
He could not see if there were any wight 
"Within or no." — Chaucer. 

9 

" Tliis is all true," we hear some impatient reader say ; " hedges 
are beautiful, excellent, good ; but what an age they require — five, 
six, seven, years — to be cut down — the poor things — once or twice, 
to be kept back every year with shortening and shearing, and only 
to reach the height of one's head, with such an outlay of time and 
trouble. Ah ! it is too tedious, I must build a paling — I shall never 
have patience to wait for a hedge ! " 

Build a paling, friend ; nature does not get up hasty job-work, 
like journeymen carpenters. But at least be consistent. Fill your 
garden with annuals. Do not sow any thing more lasting, or asking 
longer leases of time than six weeks — beans and summer sun-flow- 
ers. Breed no stock, plant no orchards, drain no meadows and — 
set no hedges ! Leave all these to wiser men, or rather be per- 
suaded of the wisdom of doing in the best way, what tillers of the 
earth have not learned to do better after a lapse of centuries ! 

But there are also persons, readers of ours, who must be treated 
with more respect. They will tell us that they have more reason 
in their objections to hedges. They admire hedges — they have 
planted and raised them. But they have not succeeded, and they 
have great doubts of the possibility of making good hedges in the 
United States. We know all the difficulties which these cultivators 
have experienced, for we have made the same trials, and seen the 
same obstacles ourselves. But we are confident we can answer 
their objections in a few words. The Hawthorn (^Cratoegus) cavr 
not he depended upon as a hedge plant in this country. 



360 TREES, 

Hundreds of emigrants from Great Britain, familiar all their 
lives with hawthorn hedges and their treatment, and deploring the 
unsightliness of "posts and rails" in America, have made hedges of 
their old favorite, the common English hawthorn, and given them 
every care and attention. Here and there we see an instance of 
success ; but it cannot be denied that, in the main, there is no suc- 
cess. The English hawthorn is not adapted to our hot and bright 
summers, and can never be successfully used for farm hedges.* 

Bnt there are many species of native hawthorn scattered 
through our woods. Will not these make good hedges ? We 
answer, excellent ones — nothing can be much better. Almost any 
of them are sujierior to the foreign sort for our climate. We have 
seen hedges of the two species known in the nurseries as the New- 
castle thorn ( Cratcegus crus-galli) and Washington thorn ( C. cordata), 
that realized all we could desire of a beautiful and effective verdant- 
less fence. 

A few years ago, therefore, we strongly recommended these na- 
tive thorns — we hoped to see them planted in all parts of the coun- 
try. But we are forced to admit now that there is a reason why 
we fear they will never make permanent hedges for the country at 
large, and for farm purposes. 

This is, their liability to be utterly destroyed by that insect, so 
multiplied in many parts of the country, the apple borer. Wher- 
ever there are old orchards, this insect sooner or later finds its way, 
and sooner or later it will attack all the hawthorns, whether native 
or foreign, for they all belong to the same family as the apple-tree, 
and are all its favorite food. Fifteen years ago, a person riding 
through the lower part of New Jersey and Delaware, would have 
been struck with the numerous and beautiful hedges of Newcastle 
and Washington thorns. Whole districts, in some parts, were 

* We know there are exceptions. We have ourselves about 1000 feet of 
excellent hedge of this plant. And we saw, with great satisfaction, last 
summer, on tlie fine fiirra of Mr. Godfrey, near Geneva, N. Y., more than a 
mile of promising young hedge of the Enghsh thorn. But the soil and climate 
there, are peculiarly favorable. These are exceptions to tiiousands of in- 
stances of total failure. 



A CHAPTER ON HEDGES. 361 

fenced with them, and nurseiymen could scarcely supply the de- 
mand for young plants. Now we learn that whole farms have lost 
their hedges by the borer, which in some places attacked them so 
suddenly, perforating and girdling the stems near the ground, that 
in two seasons, sometimes indeed in one, the hedge would be half 
killed. Of course the planting of thorn hedges is almost abandoned 
there, and we are assured by growers of the plant in those States, 
who frequently sold hundreds of thousands, that there is now no de- 
mand whatever for them.* 

We do not doubt that there are many sections of the country 
where good hawthorn hedges of the best native species, may be 
grown. In some places this fatal foe to it may never appear — 
though it follows closely in the steps of every careless orchardist. 
In gardens where insects are closely watched, it is not very difficult 
to prevent their ravages upon the thorn plants. But what we mean 
now to point out as distinctly as possible, is this — that no species 
of hawthorn, or Cratcegus, is likely ever to become a hedge plant 
of general use and value to farmers in America. 

What we want in a hedge plant for this country is, vigor, hardi- 
ness, longevity, and a sap and bark either offensive, or offering no 
temptations to any destructive insects. Are there such plants? 
We think we may now, after the matter has been pretty thoroughly 
tested, answer yes; and name the Buckthorn, and the Osage 
Orange ; the former for the northern, and the latter for the south- 
ern portions of our country. These plants are both natives. As 
they may not be familiar to many, of our readers, we shall, before 
entering upon the planting of hedges, briefly describe them, and 
give correct sketches of their leaves and growth, so that they may 
be identified by any person. 

* We recall to mind an instance on the Hudson, where three years ago 
we saw a very beautiful hedge of the Newcastle thorn — almost as handsome 
in its glossy fohage as holly itself During the past summer we again be- 
held it, nearly destroyed by the insidious attacks of the borer. 



362 



THE BEST HEDGE PLANTS. 

I. THE BUCKTHORN. 
Rhamnus catharticus. — L. 




Fig. 1. The I'.uckthom. 



The buckthorn is 
a deciduous shrub 
growing from ten to 
fifteen feet high, 
bushy, or with nu- 
merous b)'anches. 
The bark is gi-ayish 
brown ; the leaves 
are about an inch 
or an inch and a half 
long, dark green, 
smooth, ovate, and 
notched or serrated 
on the edges, and 
are placed nearly 
opposite each other 
on the branches. 
There are no inde- 
pendent thorns, pro- 
perly speaking, but 
the end of each 
year's shoots termi- 
nates in a sharp 
point or thorn. (See 
fig. 1.) The blos- 
soms are small and 
yellowish green. 
They are succeeded 
by numerous round, 
black berries, which 
ripen in autumn, 
and hang till frost, 



A CHAPTER ON HEDGES. 363 

and give the plant something of an ornamental appearance. The 
roots are unusually black in color, and are very numerous. 

The buckthorn is a native of the north of Europe, Asia, and 
North America. It is not a common shrub in the woods in this 
country, but we find it very frequently in this neighborhood and in 
various parts of Dutchess county, N. Y., as well as on the borders of 
woods in Massachusetts.* 

The bark and berries of the buckthorn are powerful cathartics. 
The sap of the berries, mixed with alum, makes the color known to 
painters as sap-green, and the bark yields a fine yellow dye. 

As a hedge plant, the buckthorn possesses three or four points 
of great merit. In the first place, its bark and leaf are offensive to 
insects, and the borer, the aphis, and others, which are so destructive 
to all hawthorns in many parts of our country, will not touch it. 

In the second place, it is remarkable for its hardiness, its ro- 
bustness, and its power of adapting itself to any soil. It will bear 
any climate, however cold, for it grows wild in Siberia ; hence it 
will never suffer, as the English thorn has been known to do, with 
an occasional winter of unusual severity. We have seen it growing 
under the shade of trees, and in dry and poor soil, as well as thriv- 
ing in moist and springy soil ; and in this respect, and in its 
natural rigid thicket-like habit, it seems more admirably fitted by 
nature for the northern hedge plant than almost any other. In the 
third place, it bears the earliest transplanting, has great longevity, 
and is very thrifty in its growth. We have already remarked that it 
is well supplied with roots. Indeed its fibres are unusually numer- 
ous even in seedlings of one year's growth. Hence it is transplant- 
ed with remarkable facility, and when treated with any thing like 
proper care, not one in five thousand of the plants will fail to grow. 
It is scarcely at all liable to diseases, and no plant bears the shears 
better, or gives a denser and thicker hedge, or is longer lived in a 
hedge. Its growth is at least one-third more rapid than that of the 
hawthorn, and the facility of raising it, at least half greater. 

* Some botanists consider it a foreign plant, introduced and naturalized 
in this country. But we have found it in solitary and almost inaccessible 
parts of the Hudson Highlands, which forbids such a belief on our part. 



^4 TREES. 

Lastly, it is one of the easiest plants to propagate. It bears ber- 
ries in abundance. These, if planted in autumn as soon as they 
ai'e ripe (or even in the ensuing spring), will germinate in the spiing, 
and if the soil is good, give plants from a foot to twenty inches high 
the first year — which are large enough for transplanting the next 
spring following. The seeds of the hawthorn do not vegetate till 
the second year, and the plants properly require to be transplanted 
once in the nurseries, and to be three years old, before they are fit 
for making hedges. Here is at once a most obvious and important 
saving of time and labor. 

It is but a simple matter to raise buckthorn plants. You begin 
by gathering the seeds as soon as they are ripe, say by the middle 
of October.* Each berry contains four seeds, covered with a thin 
black pulp. Place them in a box or tub ; mash the pulp by beat- 
ing the berries moderately with a light wooden pounder. Then put 
them in a sieve, pour some water over them, rub the seeds through, 
and throw away the skin and pulp. Two or three rubbings and 
washings will give you clean seed. Let it then be dried, and it is 
ready for sowing. 

Next, choose a good bit of deep garden soil. Dig it thoroughly, 
and give it a good dressing of manure. Open a drill with the hoe, 
exactly as you would for planting peas, and scatter the seed of the 
buckthorn in it, at an average of two or three inches apart. Cover 
them about an inch and a half deep. The rows or drills may, if 
you are about to raise a large crop, be put three feet apart, so that 
the horse cultivator may be used to keep the ground in order. 

In the spring the young plants will make their appearance plen- 
tifully. All that they afterwards require is a thorough weeding, and 
a dressing with a hoe as soon as they are all a couple of inches high, 
and a little attention afterwards to keep the ground mellow and free 
from Aveeds. One year's growth in strong land, or two in that of 
tolerable quality, will render them fit for being transplanted into the 
hedge-rows. 

* The buckthorn is pi-etty largely cultivated for its berries at the vari- 
ous Shaking Quaker settlements in this State and New England : and seeds 
may usually be procured from them in abundance, and at reasonable prices. 



A CHAPTER ON HEDGES. 865 

. If the buckthorn has any defect as a hedge plant it is this; 
while young it is not proxaded with strong and stout roots like the 
hawthorn. Its thorns, as we have already said, stand at the point 
of each shoot of the old wood. Hence it is that a buckthorn hedge 
does not appear, and is not, really well armed with thorns till it has 
attained its full shape, and has had a couple of seasons' shearing. 
After that, the hedge being well furnished with the ends of the 
shoots, it presents thorns on every face, and is a thorough defence. 
Besides this, it is a stronger and stouter plant than the thorn, and 
offers more absolute resistance than the latter plant. Though it 
may be kept low, yet it makes a most efficient shelter if allowed to 
form a high hedge. One of the largest and oldest specimens -in 
New England is that at Roxbury, planted by the late Hon. John 
Lowell, and still gro-ndng on the estate of his son. It is very strong, 
and if we remember right, twelve or fifteen feet high.* 



n. THE MACLURA, OR OSAGE ORANGE. 
Madura aurantiaca. 

The osage orange, or maclura, grows wild in abundance in th<- 
State of Arkansas, and as far north as the Red River. 

It is one of the most striking and beautiful of American trees. 
Its foliage is not unlike that of the oi-ange, but more glossy, and 

* Mr. Derby, of Salem, was one of the first persons to employ the bnck- 
thorn, and to urge its value upon the public. From the Transactions of the 
Essex Agricultural Society for 1842, we extract some of his remarks relating 
to it : "I do not hesitate to pronounce the buckthorn the most suitable plant 
for hedges I have ever met with. It vegetates early in the spring, and re- 
tains its verdure late in autumn. Being a native plant, it is never injured 
by the most intense cold, and its vitality is so great that the young plants 
may be kept out of ground for a long time, or transported to a great dis- 
tance without injury. It never sends up any suckers, nor is disfigured by 
any dead wood. It can be clipped into any shape which the caprice or in- 
genuity of the gardener may devise, and it needs no plashing or interlacing, 
the natural growth of the plants being sufficiently interwoven. It is never 
cankered by unskilful clipping, but will bear the knife to any degrea" 



3G6 



TREES. 



polished ; indeed it is of a bright varnished greeu. It grows lux- 
uriantly, about thirty or forty feet high, with a wide and spread- 
ing head. The flow- 
ers are small and 
inconspicuous, pale 
gi-een in color, those 
preceding the fruit 
resembling a little 
ball, {see figure^''' 
The fruit itself is 
very near the size 
and shape of an 
orange, yellow at 
full maturity, and 
rough on the out- 
side, not unlike the 
seed of the button- 
wood or sycamore. 
It hangs till Octo- 
ber, is not eatable, 
but is striking and 
ornamental on a 
large tree. This 
tree Avas first intro- 
duced into our gar- 
dens, where it is 
now well known, 
from a \nllage of 
the Osage Indians, 
which, coupled with 
its general appear- 
ance, gave rise to 
its popular name. The wood is full of milky sap, and we have 
never seen it attacked by any insects. 

A great many trials have been made within the last ten years, 




Fig. 2. The Osage Orange. 



* The male and female flowers are borne ou separate trees. 



A CHAPTER ON HEDGES. 



367 



in various parts of the country, with the Osage orange, as a hedge 
plant. The general result, south of this, has been in the highest d<v 
gree favorable. Many who have failed with all species of hawthorn, 
have entire faith in the value of this plant, and we have no longer 
a doubt that it is destined to become the favorite hedge plant of ail 
t'lat part of the Union lying south and west of the State of New- 
Vurk.* 




Fig. 3. Fruit of tbe Osage Oraiige Tree. 

The Osage orange, when treated as a hedge plant, has many ex- 

* The Osage orange is hardy in our own grounds, where we have culti- 
vated it for many years. In New England it will probably be found too 
tender in winter, though there is an excellent young hedge of it at Belmont 
Place, the residence of J. P. Gushing, Esq., near Boston, which we were told 
the past season, has proved quite hardy. Pruning in hedge form, by cheek- 
ing its luxuriance, will render any partially tender shrubs more hardy. It 
may be safely laid down as a rule, judging from our own observations, that 
the Osage orange will succeed perfectly as a hedge, wherever the Isabella 
grape will ripen in the open air without shelter or protection. This is a 
better and safer guide than a reference to parallels of latitude. 



368 TREES. 

cellent characteristics. It is robust, vigorous, and long-lived. It 
sends out a great abundance of branches, bears trimming perfectly 
well, is most amply j^rovided at all times with stout thorns, and its 
bright and glossy foliage gives it a very rich and beautiful appear- 
ance. It grows well on almost any soil, and makes a powerful and 
impenetrable fence in a very short time. Though it will bear rough 
and severe pruning, and is therefore well adapted for farm fences, 
yet it must be regularly trimmed twice every year, and requires 
it even more imperatively than other hedge plants, to prevent its 
sending out strong shoots to disfigure the symmetry of the hedge. 

The Osage orange is not yet sufiiciently well known to be a 
cheap plant in the nurseries.* But this is because it is not yet suffi- 
ciently in demand. It is easily propagated, and will, no doubt, soon 
be offered at very moderate rates. 

This propagation is done in two ways ; by the seed, and by the 
cuttings of the roots. 

The seed is produced plentifully by the female trees. There are 
large bearing trees in the old Landreth and McMahon gardens, near 
Philadelphia. But it is not difficult now to hav^e resort to those of 
native growth. We learn that this tree is so common in the neigh- 
borhood of Columbus, Hempstead Co., Arkansas, that the seeds may 
be had there for the expense of gathering them. They should be 
gathered at the latter part of September, and the clean seed, packed 
in an equal quantity of dry sand, may be sent to any part of the 
Union before planting time. A quart will produce at least 5000 
plants. The seed may be planted in broad drills, and treated just 
as we have already recommended for that of the buckthorn. But 
the plants are seldom fit for hedge planting till the second year. 

The other mode of propagation is by the roots. Pieces of the 
roots, of the thickness of one's little finger, made into cuttings three 
or four inches long, and planted in lines, in mellow soil, with the top 
of the root just below the surface, will soon push out shoots, and 
become plants. The trimmings of a hundred young plants, when 

* Messrs. Landreth and Fulton, of Philadelphia, have a stock of it for 
sale at $12 per 1000. Tlie usual price of hawthorns and buclithorns is $G 
per 1000; but the latter may be raised at a cost of not more than §3. 



A CHAPTER ON HEDGES. 309 

taken up from the nursery for transplanting, will thus give nearly a 
thousand new plants. 



PLANTING AND REARING THE HEDGE. 

Having secured the plants, the next step necessary is to prepare 
the ground where the future hedge is to be formed. 

For this purpose a strip must be marked out, three or four feet 
in width, along the whole line where the hedge is to grow. This 
must be thoroughly trenched with a spade, eighteen inches deep, if 
it is to be a garden hedge ; or sub-soil ploughed to that depth, if it 
is to be a farm hedge. We know many persons content themselves 
with simply digging the ground in the common way, one spade 
deep ; but we take it for granted no readers of ours will hesitate 
about the little additional trouble of properly trenching or deepen- 
ing the soil,* when they may be assured that they will gain just 
one-half in the future growth and luxuriance of the hedge. 

It is the custom in England to plant hedges on a bank with a 
ditch at one side, to carry off the water — and some persons have, 
from mere imitation, attempted the same thing here. It is worse than 
useless in our hot and dry climate. The hedge thrives better when 
planted on the level strip, simply because it is more naturally placed 
and has more moisture. If the bank and ditch is used, they are con- 
tinually liable to be torn away by the violence of our winter frosts. 

As regards the season, the spring is the best time for the north- 
ern States — the autumn for the southern. Autumn planting at the 
north often succeeds perfectly well, but the plants must be examined 
in the spring ; such as are thrown out of place by the frosts require 
to be fixed again, and this often involves a good deal of trouble in 
strong soil. Early spring planting, therefore, for this latitude, is 
much preferable on the whole. 

A good dressing of any convenient manure that is not so coarse 
as to be unmanageable in planting, should be put upon the soil and 

* Those who may be fortunate enough to possess rich deep bottom or 
alluvial lands, are the only persons who need not be at the trouble of trench 
ing their soil. 

24 



I 



s^o 



turned under while the trenching is going on. The soil must be 
thoroughly pulverized and freed from stones, lumps, and rubbish, 
before the planting begins. 

The plants are now to be made ready. This is done in the first 
place, by assorting them into two parcels — those of large and those 
of small size. Lay aside the smaller ones for the richest part of 
your ground, and plant the larger ones on the poorest of the soil. 
This will prevent that inequality which there would be in the hedge 
if strong and weak plants were mixed together, and it will equalize 
the growth of the whole plantation by dividing the advantages. 

The plants should then be trimmed. This is speedily done by 
cutting down the top or stem to within about an inch of what was 
the ground line, (so that it will, when planted again, have but an 
inch of stem above the soil,) and by correspondingly shortening all 
the larger roots about one-third. 

If you have a good, deal of planting to do, it is better to bury 
the plants in a trench close at hand, or lay-them-in-hy-the-heels^ as it 
is technically called, to keep them in good order till the moment 
they are wanted. 

The hedge should be planted in a double row, with the plants 

placed, not opposite to each other, but alternate — thus : 

* * * *»* * * 

****** 

The rows should be six inches apart, and the plants one foot 

apart in the rows. 
This will require 
about 32 plants to a 
rod, or 2000 plants 
to 1000 feet. 

Having well pul- 
verized the soil, set 
down the line firmly 
for the first row, and 
with a spade throw 
out a trench about 
eight or ten inches 
deep, keeping its up- 
Drop the plants along the line 




Fig. 4. Manner of Planting Hedges. 

riofht or firm bank next to the line. 



A CHAPTER ON HEDGES. 371 

at about the distance tliey will be needed, and then plant them 
twelve inches apart, keeping them as nearly as possible in a per- 
fectly straight line ; for it is worth bearing in mind, that you are 
performing an act, the unimpeachable straightforwardness of which 
will no doubt be criticized for a great many years afterwards. Press 
the earth moderately round the stem of the plant with the foot, when 
the filling-in of the pulverized soil is nearly completed. And, finally, 
level the whole nicely with the hoe. 

Having finished this row, take up the line and fix it again, six 
inches distant ; open the trench in the opposite direction, and set 
the plants in the same manner. This completes the planting. The 
next point, and it is one of great importance, is the cultivation which 
the young plants require until they become a hedge. It is indeed 
quite useless to plant a hedge, as some persons do, and leave it 
afterwards to be smothered by the evil genius of docks and thistles. 
A young hedge requires about the same amount of cultivation as a 
row of Indian com. The whole of the prepared strip of ground 
must be kept loose with the hoe, and free from weeds. Then light 
dressings for the first two or three summers will be required to efiiect 
this, and the thrifty and luxuriant state in which the plants are 
thereby kept, will well repay it, to the eye alone. After that, the 
branches of the hedge will have extended so, as in a good degree to 
shade and occupy the ground, and little more than a slight occa- 
sional attention to the soil will be required. 

A few words must be given to the trimming and clipping of our 
now established hedge. 

The plants having, before they were planted, been cut off" nearly 
even with the surface of the ground, it follows, that, in' the ensuing 
spring, or one year from the time of planting, they have made many 
shoots from each stem. Let the whole of this growth then be cut 
down to within six inches of the ground. 

The following spring, which will be two years of growth, cut back 
the last season's shoots, leaving only one foot of the current season's 
growth. This will leave our hedge, altogether, eighteen inches high. 

The third year shorten back the tops so as to leave again one 
foot of the year's growth. The hedge will now be two and a half 
feet high. 



•372 TREES. 

Tliis course must be pursued every spring until the hedge is of 
the desired height and form, which will take place in five or six 
years. The latter time is usually required to make a perfect hedge — 
though the buckthorn will make a pretty good hedge in five years. 

This severe process of cutting off" all the top at first, and annu- 
ally shortening back half the thrifty growth of a young hedge, seems 
to the novice like an unnecessary cruelty to the plant, and trial of 
one's own patience. We well remember as a boy, how all our in- 
dignation was roused at the idea of thus seeing a favorite hedge 
'■'■put hack " so barbarously every year. But it is the " inexorable 
must,'''' in hedge growing. Raising a hedge is like raising a good 
name ; if there is no base or foundation for the structure, it is very 
likely to betray dreadful gaps at the bottom before it is well estab- 
lished. In a hedge, the great and all important point is to make a 
broad and thick base. Once this is accomplished, the task is more 
than half over. The top will speedily grow into any shape we de- 
sire, and the sides are pliant enough to the will of him who holds 
the 'shears. But no necromancy, short of cutting the whole down 
again, will fill up the base of a hedge that is lean and open at the 
bottom.* Hence the imperative necessity of cutting back the shoots 
till the base becomes a perfect thicket. 

The hedge of the buckthorn, or Osage orange, that has been 
treated in this way, and has arrived at its sixth year, should be about 
six feet high, tapering to the top, and three feet wide at the base. 
This is high enough for all common purposes ; but when shelter, or 
extra protection is needed, it may be allowed to grow eight or ten 
feet high, and four feet wide at the base. 

In trimming the hedge, a pair of large shears, called hedge 
shears, are commonly used. But we have found that English labor- 
ers in our service, will trim with double the rapidity with the instru- 
ment they call a " hook." It may be had at our agricultural ware- 
houses, and is precisely like a sickle, except that it has a sharp edge. 

When the hedge has attained the size and shape which is finally 

* Plashing is a mode of interlacing the branchfe of hedges that are tliiii 
and badly grown, so as to obviate the defect as far as possible. It need 
never be resorted to with the buckthorn, when a hedge is properly trim- 
med from the fii-st. 



A CHAPTER ON HE 



iDGES. 



373 



desired, it is not allowed to grow any larger. Two shearings or 
clippings are necessary, every season, to keep it in neat order — one 
in June, and the other at the end of September. 

Counting the value of the plants at the commencement at five 
dollars per thousand, the entire cost of the hedge, at the end of the 
sixth year, — including planting, cultivating, and sheaving in the best 
manner, — would here be about seventy-five cents a rod ; wliich, foi' 
an everlasting fence, and one of so much beauty, we think a very 
moderate sum. 

We have said nothing about the temporary fencing which our 
hedge will need, till it is at least five years old — that is, if it is a 
boundary hedge, or is bordered on one or both sides by fields where 
animals run. It is evident enough that for this purpose, in most 
cases, the cheaper the fence the better. A very indifi^erent wooden 
fence will last five years, and a light barrier of posts and rails will 
best suit the taste of most farmers. A much more convenient, and very 
excellent one for the purpose, is the movable hurdle fence, made of 
light chestnut rails, which costs but little, and may be readily re- 
moved from one place or field to another, as the case requires. 

No better tail piece can be given to this long article, than the 
following sketch, representing the remarkably fine specimen of the 
buckthorn hedge in the grounds of John C Lee, Esq. of Salem, Mass. 




Fig. 5. Mr. Lee's Hedge. 



XIII. 

ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF ORNAMENTAL TREES AND 
SHRUBS IN NORTH AMERICA. 

[From Hovey's Mag. of Horticnlture.] 

December, 1835. 

IT is remarkable, that notwithstanding the rapid progress which 
horticulture is making in the United States, so little attention 
is paid to the planting of ornamental trees, with a view to the embel- 
lishment of our country residences. The magnificent parks of Eng- 
land have been long and justly admired, as constituting one of the 
most beautiful features of that highly cultivated country ; and al- 
though the horticultural creations of our more limited means, may 
never equal in extent and grandeur some of those of the aristocracy 
of Europe, yet every person of cultivated mind, is aware how beau- 
tiful the hand of taste can render even very limited scenes, by the 
proper application of the principles and materials necessary to men- 
tal pleasure and gratification. 

Considered in a single point of view, what an infinite variety of 
beauty there is in a tree itself ! Every part is admirable, from the 
individual beauty of its leaves, to its grand eflfect as a whole. Who 
has not witnessed in some favorite landscape the indescribable charm 
thrown over the whole scene by a single tree ? Perhaps a huge 
giant, whose massy trunk and wude out-stretched arms have been 
the production of ages ; or the more graceful form of another whose 
delicate foliage reflects the sunbeam, and trembles with the slightest 
breeze that passes over it. There is no monotony in nature — even 
in trees, every season has its own charms. Spring, the season of 
renewed life, witnesses the rush of the newly imbibed sap — the 



ORNAMENTAL TREES AND SHRUBS IN NORTH AMERICA, 375 

buds swell — the tender leaves unfold, and the admirer of nature is 
delighted by the freshness and \dvidness of the young foliage. Sum- 
mer comes — he is refreshed by the fragrance of their blossoms — 
their shade is a welcome luxury in the noontide sun — perchance 
their fruit may be an acceptable offering to the palate — and who in 
this country has not witnessed the autumnal glories of an American 
forest ? 

There is no country of the globe which produces a greater va- 
riety of fine forest trees, whether considered for the purposes of orna- 
ment or timber, than North America. Yet it is a fact that for both 
these purposes, more particularly the first, they are horticulturally 
better known in many parts of Europe, than they are now at home. 
Those governments have imported the seeds of all our most valua- 
ble forest trees, annually, for more than a century. Instead of 
planting, our agriculturists have hitherto been engaged in destroy- 
ing. In the Atlantic States, this period is now past; and we 
would, therefore, first direct the attention of the arboriculturist to 
our own trees. 

There is not in the whole catalogue, scarcely a more interesting- 
object than an immense oak tree, when placed so as to be consid- 
ered in relation to the large mansion of a wealthy proprietor. Its 
broad ample Hmbs and aged form, give a very impressive air of 
dignity to the whole scene. It is a very common inhabitant of our 
woods, there being forty-four species of indigenous growth between 
the 20th and 48th degrees of north latitude.* The pendulous 
branches of the American elm — the light foliage of the birch — the 
cheerful vernal appearance of some of the species of maple — the de- 
licate leaf of the locust, and the heavy masses of verdure produced 
by the beech, are sufficient to render them all ornamental in park 
scenery, and they should ever find a proper situation in an extensive 
lawn. Our American poplars should be recollected, when a rapid 
growth and immediate effect is required. Gleditschia triacanthos, 
or the sweet locust, is interesting from its long masses of thords. 
The plane or sycamore (Pkitanus occidentalis) is too much neglect- 
ed because it is so common ; but in favorable situations, in deep 

* Michaux. 



376 ' TREES. 

soils, and where ample room is afforded, it produces a noble tree of 
immense size. Several have been measured on the banks of the 
Ohio from forty to fifty feet in circumference. 

A native tree, but little known in our ornamental plantations, is 
the Kentucky coffee (Gymnocladus canadensis). It is a native of 
Kentucky and Tennessee, grows to the height of forty feet, and its 
doubly compound foliage, and very singular appearance when de- 
foliated in the winter months, are well calculated to render it an 
interesting feature in the landscape. Cupressus distichum (Taxo- 
dium Rich), the deciduous cypress, flourishing in vast quantities in 
the southern parts of the Union, is, though perfectly hardy, and of 
easy cultivation, but little known in the northern States.* Its beau- , 
tiful light green foliage contrasts elegantly with the denser hue of 
other deciduous trees, and we are hardly aware of an upright grow- 
ing tree, better calculated to give variety of color to groups and 
masses, than this. Catdlpa syringsefolia is a most striking orna- 
ment to a lawn, when in the summer months it is loaded with its 
large clusters of parti-colored flowers. 

But the most splendid, most fragrant, and most celebrated orna- 
mental production of the woods and forests of our country, is yet to 
be mentioned. It is the unrivalled Magnolia grandiflura: the mpst 
magnificent of the genus, a beautiful tree of seventy feet in its na- 
tive soil, only attains the size of a large shrub in the middle States, 
and will scarcely withstand the winters of the northern. But M. 
acuminata, though not so beautiful, is a fine large tree, sometimes 
attaining the height of ninety feet. It is abundant in western New- 
York and Ohio. M. macrophylla is not only remarkable for the 
beauty of its flowers, but also for the extraordinary size of its leaves; 
they having been measured so long as three feet. M. tripetela, the 
umbrella tree, is also a fine species growing in districts from Georgia 
to New-York ; its large, cream-colored flowers measuring seven or 
eight inches in diameter. Still more rare, though highly ornamen- 
tal, are M. cordata and M. auriculata ; small trees which ought to 
be indispensable to every collection. The species of smallest stature 

* We liave seen a celebrated specimen in Col. Carr's garden, Philadel- 
phia, 180 feet high, 25 feet in circumference, and 91 years old. 



ORNAMENTAL TREES AND SHRUBS IN NORTH AMERICA. 377 

and most frequent occurrence in the middle States, is M. glauca, the 
flowers of which are highly odoriferous. It succeeds best in damp 
soils, and is found very plentifully in situations of this kind in New 
Jersey. 

Ornamental trees from other countries should find a prominent 
place in the plantations of our horticulturists. They not only have 
an intrinsic value in themselves, but, to a refined taste, they offer 
gratifications from the associations connected with them. Thus the 
propiietor may view, in the walks over his grounds, not o'nly pro- 
ductions of his own country, but their fellows from many otlier 
climes. We may witness flourishing upon the same soil, many of 
the productions of southern Europe and Asia ; individuals from the 
frigid regions of Siberia, and the almost unknown forests of Pata- 
gonia ; vegetables which perseverance has abstracted from the jea- 
lous Chinese, and which the botanical traveller ' has discovered 
among the haunts of the savage Indian. 

Among the foreign trees which are most generally cultivated 
for ornament in tins country, we may mention the two genera of 
Tilia and ^Esculus. The European lime or linden-tree, with its fine 
stately form and fi'agrant blossoms, is a most pleasing object as an 
ornamental tree. The horse chestnut (^E. hippocastanum) is per- 
haps better known than any foreign tree in the country ; its com- 
pact growth, fine digitate leaves, and above all, its superb, showy 
floAvers, distributed in huge bouquets over the foliage, have rendered 
it here, as in Europe, an object of universal admiration. We would 
here beg leave to direct the attention of planters to the less known, 
but no less interesting species of this tree, natives of our own soil. 
M. paira, producing red, and M. flava, yellow flowers, form very 
beautiful trees of moderate size. The other species are rather large 
shrubs than trees, and are very pretty ornaments to the garden. 

The brilliant appearance of the European mountain ash (Sor- 
bus aucuparia), when in autumn it is densely clad with its rich 
crimson fruit, is a circumstance sufiicient to give it strong claims to 
the care of the arboriculturist, independently of the beauty of its 
foliage. 

We must not forget, in this brief notice, the larches both of Eu- 
rope and our country. Pinus tarix has long been considered among 



378 TREES. 

the first timber trees of tlie other continent. The singularity of its 
foliage, as a deciduous tree, its long declining branches and droop- 
ing spray, are well calculated to give variety to the landscape, and 
we are happy to see, that both this and our two American species, 
P. microcarpa and P. pendula, are becoming more generally objects 
of attention and cultivation. 

Among the interesting trees of more recent introduction, and 
which are yet rare in this country, we may mention Salisbiiria adi- 
antifolia, the Japanese maiden-hair tree. The foliage is strikingly 
singular and beautiful, resembling that well known fern, Adiantum 
pedatum, and the tree appears to be very hardy. The purple 
beech, a variety of Fagus sylvatica, is a very unique object, with its 
strangely colored leaves, and a splendid tree lately introduced from 
the banks of the Missouri and Arkansas, is the Osage orange (Ma- 
dura aurantiaca). Its vivid green leaves and rapid growth are 
already known to us; but it is described to us as being a tree, in 
its native soil, of thirty or forty feet in height, and bearing abun- 
dance of beautiful fruit, of the size and appearance of an orange. 
The weeping ash is also a very unique and desirable object, and its 
long, seemingly inverted shoots may be introduced in some situa- 
tions with an excellent effect. 

We have often regretted that, in decorating the groimds of 
country residences, so little attention is paid by the proprietors, to 
hardy evergreen trees. Ornamental at any season, they are eminently 
so in winter — a period, in this latitude, when every other portion of 
vegetable matter yields to the severity of our northern climate, and 
when those retaining their coats of verdure uninjured are beautiful 
and cheerful memorials of the unceasing vitality of the vegetable 
world. Deciduous trees at this season present but a bleak and deso- 
late aspect — a few evergreens, therefore, interspersed singly over the 
lawn, or tastefully disposed in a few groups, so as to be seen from 
the windows of the mansion, will give a pleasing liveliness to the 
scene, which cannot fail to charm every person. We would earn- 
estly advise every person engaged in ornamental planting, to transfer 
some of our fine native evergreen trees to their lawn, park, or terrace. 
We are aware that many think that there is great difficulty in trans- 
planting them with success, but experience has taught us that, with 



ORNAMENTAL TREES AND SHRUI3S IN NORTH AMERICA. 379 

the following precautions, no more difficulty is found than with deci- 
duous trees. In transplanting, choose the spring of the year, at the 
time the huds are siveUing : cut as few of the roots as possible, and 
do not suffer thon to become dry before you replace them in the soil. 
Among our most ornamental evergreen trees may be mentioned the 
difterent species of pine, natives of North America. Several of them 
are fine stately trees, and one which is particularly ornamental as a 
park tree, is the white or Weymouth pine, Pinus strobus. Pinus 
rigida, when old and large, is a very picturesque tree ; and Pinus 
alba, rubra et fraseri, the white, red, and double spruce firs, are trees. 
of moderate size, very generally diffused in the middle States, and 
easily obtained. The well known balsam fir, Pinus balsamea, is such 
a beautiful evergi-een, and succeeds so well in this climate, that it 
should find a place in the smallest plantations. We have observed 
it thriving Avell even in confined spaces in cities. Thuja occidentulis, 
the arborvitfe, is a very intei'esting ti-ee, and, as well as the exotic 
T. orientalis, will be considered very ornamental in districts where 
it is not common. 

Among the most ornamental foreign coniferous trees we will no- 
tice the Norway spruce, the drooping branches of which, in a large 
specimen, are so highly admired ; the well known Scotch fir, the 
finest timber tree of Europe, celebrated for growing on thin soils ; 
and the beautiful silver fir, Pinus picea ; all of them are noble 
trees, and as they can be readily procured at the nurseries, should 
be found in the grounds of every country residence. 

Several other species of this genus which are thought the most 
beautiful trees of Europe, unfortunately are yet scarce in this country. 
The stone pine, whose seeds are a delicious fruit, and whose " vast 
canopy, supported on a naked column of immense height, forms 
one of the chief and peculiar beauties in Italian scenery and in the 
living landscapes of Claude," and the not less interesting Pinus Pi- 
naster and P. Cembra of the mountains of Switzerland. But the 
most desirable evergreen tree which floift-ishes in temperate climates, 
is the classic cedar of Lebanon, Pinus cedrus. Its singular ramose 
branches and wild picturesque appearance in a large sjiecimen, give 
a more majestic and decided character to a fine building and its 
adjacent scenery, than any other tree whatever. It is a native of 



380 TREES. 

the coldest parts of Mt. Libanus, but according to Professor Martyn, 
more trees are to be found in England at the present time than on 
its original site. As it is scarcely yet known as an ornamental tree 
in this country, we certainly do not know of an object better worth 
the attention of the arboriculturist. 

We observe in foreign periodicals that several magnificent hardy 
iudivitluals belonging to this section of trees, have been lately intro- 
duced into Europe, and we hope before long they will find their 
way to the hands of our cultivators. Among the moi^ remarkable, 
we may mention a splendid new genus of pine (Pinus Lambertiana) 
lately found in northern California. The discoverer, Mr. D. Doug- 
las, botanical collector to the London Horticultural Society, de- 
scribes it as growing from one hundred and fifty to two hundred 
feet in lieight, producing cones sixteen inches in length. He mea- 
sured a specimen two hundred and fifteen feet long and fifty-seven 
in circumference.* Several other specimens of this genus, of much 
grandeur and beauty, are but lately introduced into cultivation, and 
which our present limits will barely permit us to enumerate. Phius 
Douglasii, P. monticola, P. grandis, are immense trees from the 
northwest coast of America ; Pinus deodara [Cedrus deodava^ Rox.], 
from Himalaya, P. taurica', from Asiatic Turkey, and P. Laricio, 
from the mountains of Corsica, are spoken of as being highly orna- 
mental ; Araucaria imbricata, a beautiful evergreen tree of South 
America, and Cupressus pendula, the weeping cypress of the Chi- 
nese, are extremely elegant — are found to withstand the climate of 
Britain, and would probably also endure that of this country. 

We cannot close these remarks without again adverting to the 
infinite beauty which may be jjroduced by a proper use of this fine 
material of nature. Many a dreary and barren prospect may be 
rendered interesting — many a natural or artificial deformity hidden, 
and the eftect of almost every landscape may be improved, simply by 
the judicious employment of trees. The most fertile countries would 
appear but a desert without them, and the most picturesque scenery 
in every part of the globe has owed to them its highest charms. 
Added to this, by recent improvements in the art of transplanting,! 

* Trans. Linnaenn Soc, vol. 15, p. 497. 
f Vide Sir Henry Stuart on Planting. 



ORNAMENTAL TREES AND SHRUBS IN NORTH AMERICA. 381 

the ornamental planter of the present day may realize almost imme- 
diately what was formerly the slow and regular production of 
years. 

Additimial Note. — The beauty of our autumnal foliage is well 
known to the whole world : it has long been the theme of admira- 
tion with the poet and the painter, and, to a foreigner, it appears to 
be one of the most superb features of this fresh " green forest land." 
Yet, every year, the axe of the woodsman erases wide masses of the 
rich coloring from the panorama. Will it not be worth the consid- 
eration of persons who are now making, or who, in many parts of 
the country, before much time has elapsed, will make extensive plan- 
tations of forest trees for ornament, shelter and profit, to consider 
how splendid an efiect may be produced, by a disposition of the 
most brilliantly colored of our indigenous trees in separate groups 
and masses, on the parks and lawns of extensive country residences ? 
It is true, that autumn's gay colors remain with us but for a short 
time, but is this not also true with respect to the vivid greenness of 
vernal foliage, and the still more fugitive beauty of blossom which 
constitutes one of the chief points of attraction in ornamental trees ? 
We feel confident that, when landscape-gardening shall arrive at that 
perfection which it is yet destined to attain in this country, this will 
be a subject of important consideration. The high beauty with which 
the richness of our autumnal tints may invest even the tamest scene, 
w6 were never more deeply impressed with, than in travelling 
through New Jersey, during the months of September and October 
of the present year. Every one is aware of the tame, monotonous 
appearance of a great portion of the interior of that State ; but only 
those who have seen the same landscapes in autumn, can imagine 
with what a magic glow even they are enshrined in that season. 
The following are some of the trees we noticed, as assuming the 
richest hues in their foliage. Scarlet oak (Quercus coccinea) bright 
scarlet, dogwood (Cornus florida), and the tupelo and sour gum 
(Nyssa vdllosa, etc.) deep crimson, different species of Acer or ma- 
ple, various shades of yellow and deep orange ; the sweet-gum (Li- 
quidamber) reddish purple, and our American ash, a distinct sombre 
purple. These are but a few of the most striking colors ; and all 



382 TREES. 



the intermediate shades were filled up by the birches, sycamores, 
elms, chesnuts, and beeches, of which we have so many numerous 
species in our forests, and the whole was thrown into lively contrast 
by a rich intermingling of the deep green in the thick foliage of the 
pines, spruces, and hemlocks. 



AGRICULTURE. 



AGRICULTURE. 



I 



CULTIVATORS— THE GREAT INDUSTRIAL CLASS 
OF AMERICA. 

June, 1848. 

AT this moment, when the old world's monarchical institutions 
are fast falling to pieces, it is interesting to look at home, at 
the prosperous and happy condition of our new-world republic. 

Abroad, the sovereign springs from a privileged class, and holds 
his position by the force of the army. His state and government 
are supported by heavy taxes, wrung from the laboring classes, often 
entirely without their consent. At home, the people are the sover- 
eign power. The safety of their government lies in their own intel- 
ligence ; and the taxes paid for the maintenance of public order, or 
to create public works, fall with no heavy or unequal pressure, but 
are wisely and justly distributed throughout all classes of society. 

In the United States, the industrial classes are the true sover- 
eigns. Idleness is a condition so unrecognized and unrespected 
with us, that the few professing it find themselves immediately 
thrown out of the great machine of active life which constitutes 
American society. Hence, an idle man is a cipher. Work ho 
must, either with his head, his hands, or his capital ; work in some 
mode or other, or he is a dethroned sovereic/n. The practical and 
busy spirit of our people repudiates him, and he is of no more abso- 
25 



386 AGRICULTURE. 

lute consequence tlian the poor fugitive king, — denied and driven 
out by his subjects. 

The CULTIVATORS OF THE SOIL coustitutc the great industrial 
class in this country. They may well be called its " bone and 
sinew ;" for, at this moment they do not only feed all other classes, 
but also no insignificant portion of needy Europe, furnish the raw 
material for manufactures, and raise the great staples which figure 
so largely in the accounts of the merchant, the ship owner and man- 
ufacturer, in every village, town, and sea-port in the Union. 

The sovereigri people has a better right to look over its " rent 
roll " — to examine the annual sum total of the products of its indus- 
try, than any other sovereign whatever ; and it has accordingly em- 
ployed Mr. Burke, the excellent commissioner of patents, to collect 
statistical facts, and publish them in the annual report of his office. 

An examination of the condition of this country, as exhibited in 
Mr. Burke's report of its industrial resources, will, we think, aftbrd 
the best proof ever exhibited of the value of the American Union, 
and the extraordinary wealth of our territory. The total value of 
the products of the soil, alone, for the past year, he estimates at 
more than one thousand Jive hundred millions of dollars.* 

The value of the grain crops and great agricultural staples of the 
country, for 1847, amounts to $815,863,688. 

The value of all horticultural products (gardens, orchards, and 
nurseries), is estimated at $459,577,533. 

The value of the live stock, wool,' and dairy products, amounts 
to $246,054,579. 

The value of the products of the woods and forests, amounts to 
-159,099,628. 

It is also estimated that there were produced last year 224,384,502 
bushels of surplus grains of various kinds, over and above what was 
amply sufficient for home consumption. This is much more than 
enough to meet the ordinary demand of all the corn-buying coun- 
tries of Europe. 

Over one thousand Jive hundred millions of dollars, in the pro- 
ducts of the soil, for a single year ! Does not this fully justify us in 

* $1,579,595,428. 



CULTIVATORS THE GREAT INDUSTRIAL CLASS. 387 

holding up the cultivators of the American soil as the great indus- 
trial class ? But let us compare them a little, by Mr. Burke's aid, 
with the other industrial classes. 

The annual product of all the manufactures in the Union, for 
1847, is estimated at $500,000,000. The profits of trade and com- 
merce at 123,458,345. The profits of fisheries $17,069,262; and 
of banks, money institutions, rents, and professions, $145,000,000. 
Total, $809,697,407. 

Here we have the facts, or something, at least, like an approxi- 
mation to the facts, of the results of the yearly industrial labor of 
the republic. The average amount is the enormous sum of over two 
thousand three hundred and eighty-nine millions of dollars. 

Of this, the agricultural class produces nearly double that of all 
other classes, or over one thousand five hundred and seventy-nine 
millions ; while all other classes, merchants, manufacturers, profes- 
sional men, etc., produce but little more than eight hundred and 
nine millions. 

There are a few, among the great traders and "merchant 
princes," who do not sufficiently estimate the dignity or importance 
of any class but their own. To them we commend a study of Mr. 
Burke's statistical tables. There are some few farmers who think 
their occupation one of narrow compass and resources ; we beg them 
to look over the aggregate annual products of their country, and 
take shame to themselves. 

It is no less our duty to call the attention of our own readers to 
the great importance of the horticultural interest of the country. 
Why, its products ($459,000,000) are more than half as great in 
value as those strictly agricultural ; they are almost as large as the 
whole manufacturing products of the country ; and half as large as 
the manufacturing and all other interests, excepting the agricultural, 
combined. ^ 

In truth, the profits of the gardens and orchards of the country, 
are destined to be enormous. Mr. Burke's estimate appears to us 
very moderate ; and from the unparalleled increase in this interest 
very recently, and the peculiar adaptation of our soil and climate to 
the finest fruits and vegetables, the next ten years must exhibit an 
amount of horticultural products which will almost challenge belief. 



388 AGRICULTURE. 

The markets of this countiy will not only be supplied Avith fruit in 
great abundance and excellence, but thousands of orchards will be 
cultivated solely for foreign consumption. 

The system of railroads and cheap transportation already begins 
to supply the seaboard cities with some of the fair and beautiful 
fruits of the fertile west. When the orchards of Massachusetts fail, 
the orchards of western New- York will supply the Boston market 
with apples ; and thus, wherever tlie finest transportable products 
of the soil are in demand, there they will find their way. 

There are, however, many of the finer and more perishable pro- 
ducts of the garden and orchard wliich will not bear a long journey. 
These, it should be the peculiar business of the cultivator of the older 
and less fertile soil in the seaboard States to grow. He may not, 
as an agi-iculturist, be able to compete with the fertile soils of the 
west ; but he may still do so as a horticulturist, by devoting his at- 
tention and his land to orchards and gardens. If it is too difficult 
and expensive to renovate an old soil that is worn out, or bring up 
a new one naturally poor, for farm crops, in the teeth of western 
grain prices, he may well afford to do so for the larger profit derived 
from orchard and garden culture, where those pi'oducts are raised 
for which a market must be found without long transportation. He 
who will do this most successfully must not waste his time, labor, 
and capital, by working in the dark. He must learn gardening and 
orcharding as a practical art, and a science. He must collect the 
lost elements of the soil from the animal and mineral kingdoms, and 
bring them back again to their starting point. He must seek out 
the food of plants in towns and villages, where it is wasted and 
thrown away. He must plant and prune so as. to aid and direct 
nature, that neither time nor space are idly squandered. 

Certainly, we have just pride and pleasure in looking upon the 
great agricultural class of America. Landholders and proprietors 
of the soil, as they are, governing themselves, and developing the 
resources of a great nation — how different is their position from that 
of the farmers of England, — hundreds of thousands of men, work- 
ing, generation after generation, upon lands leased by a small privi- 
leged body, which alone owns and entails the soil ; or even from 
that of France, where there are millions of proprietors, but proprie- 



CULTIVATORS THE GREAT INDUSTRIAL CLASS. 389 

toi*s of a soil so subdivided that the majority have half a dozen acres, 
or perhaps, even a half or fourth of an acre in extent, — often scarcely 
sufficient to raise a supply of a single crop for a small family. 

If we have said any thing calculated to inspire self-respect in the 
agricultural class of this country, it is not with a view to lessen that 
for any other of its industrial classes. Far from it. Indeed, with the 
versatility of power and pursuits which characterize our people, no 
class can be said to be fixed. The farming class is the great nursery 
of all the professions, and the industrial arts of the country. From 
its bosom go out the shrewdest lawyers and the most successful 
merchants of the towns ; and back to the country return these 
classes again, however successful, to be regenerated in the primitive 
life and occupation of the race. 

But the agricultural class perhaps is still wanting in a just ap- 
preciation of its importance, its rights, and its duties. It has so long 
listened to sermons, lectures and orations, from those who live in 
cities and look upon country life as " something for dull loits^'' that 
it still needs apostles who draw their daily breath in green fields, 
and are untrammelled by the schools of politics and trade. 

The agricultural journals, over the whole country, have done 
much to raise the dignity of the calling. They have much still to 
do. The importance of agricultural schools, of a high grade, should 
be continually insisted upon, until every State Legislature in the 
Union comes forward with liberal endowments ; and if pledges 
ought ever to be demanded of politicians, then farmers should not 
be slow to require them of their representatives, for legislation favor- 
able to every sound means of increasing the intelligence of this 
great bulwark of the country's safety and prosperity — the cultivators 
of the soil. 



11. 



THE NATIONAL IGNORANCE OF THE AGRICULTURAL 
INTEREST. 

September, 1851. 

TO general observers, the prosperity of the United States in the 
great interests of trade, commerce, manufactures, and agricul- 
ture, is a matter of every-day remark and general assent. The 
country extends itself from one zone to another, and from one 
ocean to another. New States are settled, our own population in- 
creases, emigration pours its vast tide upon our shores, new soils 
give abundant harvests, new settlements create a demand for the 
necessaries and luxuries of life provided by the older cities, and the 
nation exhibits at every census, so unparalleled a growth, and such 
magnificent resources, that common sense is startled, and only the 
imagination can keep pace with the probable destinies of the one 
hundred millions of Americans that will speak one language, and, 
we trust, be governed by one constitution, half a century hence. 

As a wise man, who finds his family increasing after the manner 
of the ancient patriarchs, looks about him somewhat anxiously, to 
find out if there is likely to be bread enough for their subsistence, 
so a wise statesman, looking at this extraordinary growth of popula- 
tion, and this prospective wealth of the country, will inquire, nar- 
rowly, into its productive powers. He will desire to know whether 
the national domain is so managed that it will be likely to support 
the great people that will be ready to live upon it in the next century. 
He will seek to look into the present and the future sufliciently to 
ascertain whether ©ur rapid growth and material abundance do not 



NATIONAL IGNORANCE OF TUE AGRICULTURAL INTEREST. 391 

arise almost as mucli from the migratoiy habits of our people, and 
the constant taking-up of rich prairies, yielding their Adrgin harvests 
of breadstuifs, as from the institutions peculiar to our favored 
country. 

We regi'et to say, that it does not require much scrutiny on the 
[)art of a serious inquirer, to discover that we are in some respects 
like a large and increasing family, running over and devouring a 
great estate to which they have fallen heirs, with little or no care to 
preserve or maintain it, rather than a wise and prudent onfe, seeking 
to maintain that estate in its best and most productive condition. 

To be sure, our trade and commerce are pursued with a thrift 
and sagacity likely to add largely to our substantial wealth, and to 
develope the collateral resources of the country. But, after all, trade 
and commerce are not the great interests of the country. That in- 
terest is, as every one admits, agriculture. By the latter, the great 
bulk of the people live, and by it all are fed. It is clear, therefore, 
if that interest is neglected or misunderstood, the population of the 
country may steadily increase, but the means of supporting that 
population (which can never be largely a manufacturing population) 
must necessarily lessen, proportionately, every year. 

Now, there are two undeniable facts at present staring us Amer- 
icans in the face — amid all this prosperity : the first is, that the pro- 
ductive power of nearly all the land in the United States, which has 
been ten years in cultivation, is fearfidly lessening every season, from 
the desolating effects of a ruinous system of husbandry ; and the 
second is, that in consequence of this, the rural population of the 
older States is either at a stand-still, or it is falling off, or it increases 
very slowly in proportion to the population of those cities and towns 
largely engaged in commercial pursuits. 

Our census returns show, for instance, that in some of the States 
(such as Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, and Maryland), the 
only increase of population is in the towns — for in the rural popu- 
lation there is no growth at all. In the great agricultural State of 
New-York, the gain in the fourteen largest towns is sixty-four per 
cent., while in the rest of the State it is but nineteen per cent. In 
Pennsylvania, thix-ty-nine and a quarter per cent, in the large towns, 
and but twenty-one per cent, in the rural districts. The politicians in 



392 AGRICULTURE, 

this State, finding themselves losing a representative in the new 
ratio, while Pennsylvania gains two, have, in alarnci, actually deigned 
to inquire into the growth of the agricultural class, with some little 
attention. They have not generally arrived at the truth, however, 
which is, that Pennsylvania is, as a State, much better farmed than 
New-York, and hence the agricultural population increases much 
faster. 

It is a painful truth, that both the press and the more active 
minds of tlie country at large are strikingly ignorant of the condition 
of agriculture in all the older States, and one no less painful, that the 
farmers, who are not ignorant of it, are, as a body, not intelligent 
enough to know how to remedy the evil. 

" And what is that evil ? " many of our readers will doubtless 
inquire. We answer, the miserable system of farming steadily pur- 
sued by eight-tenths of all the farmers of this country, since its first 
settlement ; a system which proceeds upon the principle of taking 
as many crops from the land with as little manure as possible — 

imtil its productive powers are exhausted, and then emigrating 

to some part of the country where they can apply the same practice 
to a new soil. It requires far less knowledge and capital to wear 
out one good soil and abandon it for another, than to cultivate a 
good soil so as to maintain its productive powers fi'om year to year, 
unimpaired. Accordingly, the emigration is always " to the west." 
There, is ever the Arcadia of the American farmer ; there are the 
acres which need but to be broken up by the plough, to yield their 
thirty or forty bushels of wheat to the acre. Hence, the ever full 
tide of farmers or farmers' sons, always sets westward, and the lands 
at home are left in a compai'atively exhausted and barren state, and 
hence, too, the slow progress of farming as an honest art, where 
every body practises it like a highway robber. 

There are, doubtless, many superficial thinkers, who consider 
these western soils exhaustless — " prairies where crop after crop can 
be taken, by generation after generation." There was never a 
greater ftillacy. There are acres and acres of land in the counties 
bordering the Hudson — such counties as Dutchess and Albany — 
from which the early settlers reaped their thirty to forty bushels of 
wheat to the acre, as easily as their great-grandchildren do now in 



NATIONAL IGNORANCE OF THE AGRICULTURAL INTEREST. 393 

the most fertile fields of the valley of the Mississippi. Yet these 
very acres now yield only twelve or fourteen bushels each, and the 
average yield of the county of Dutchess — one of the most fertile 
and best managed on the Hudson, is at the present moment only 
six bushels of wheat to the acre ! One of our cleverest agricultural 
writers has made the estimate, that of the twelve millions of acres 
of cultivated land in the State of New-York, eight millions are in 
the hands of the " skinners," who take away every thing from the 
soil, and put nothing back ; three millions in the hand of farmers 
who manage them so as to make the lands barely hold their own, 
while one million of acres are well farmed, so as to maintain a high 
and productive state of fertility. And as New- York is confessedly 
one of the most substantial of all the older States, in point of agri- 
' culture, this estimate is too flattering to be applied to the older 
States. Even Ohio — newly settled as she is, begins to fall ofi:' per 
acre, in her annual wheat crop, and before fifty years will, if the 
present system continues, be considered a worn out soil. 

The evil at the bottom of all this false system of husbandry, is 
no mystery. A rich soil contains only a given quantity of vegeta- 
ble and mineral food for plants. Every crop grown upon a fertile 
soil, takes from it a certain amount of these substances, so essential 
to the gi'owth of another crop. If these crops, like most of our 
grain crops, are sent away and consumed in other counties, or other 
parts of the counties — aS in the great cities, and none of their essen- 
tial elements in the way of vegetable matter, lime, potash, etc., 
restored to the soil, it follows as a matter of course, that eventually 
the soil TOMs^become barren or miserably unprofitable. And such 
is, unfortunately, the fact. Instead of maintaining as many animals 
as possible upon the farm, and carefully restoring to the soil in the 
shape of animal and mineral manure, all those elements needful to 
the growth of future vegetables, our farmers send nearly all their 
crops for sale in cities — and allow all the valuable animal and 
mineral products of these ci'ops to go to waste in those cities.* 

" Oh ! but," the farmer upon worn out land will say, " we cannot 

* lu Belgium — the most productive countiy in the world, — the urinary 
excrements of each cow are sold for $10 a year, and are regularly applied 
to the land, and poudrette is valued as gold itself. 



394 AGRICULTURE. 

afford to pay for all the labor necessary for the high farming you ad- 
vocate." Are you quite sure of that assertion ? We suspect if you 
were to enter carefully into the calculation, as your neighbor, the 
merchant, entei-s into the calculation of his profit and loss in his 
system of trade, you would find that the difference in value between 
one crop of 12 bushels and another of 30 bushels of wheat to the 
acre, would leave a handsome profit to that farmer who would pursue 
with method and energy, the pi-actice of never taking an atom of 
food for 23lants from the soil in the shape of a crop, without, in some 
natural way, replacing it again. For, it must be remembered, that 
needful as the soil is, every plant gathers a large part of its food 
from the air, and the excrement of animals fed upon crops, will 
restore to the soil all the needful elements taken from it by those 
crops. 

The principle has been demonstrated over and over again, but 
the difficulty is to get the farmers to believe it. Because they can 
get crops, such as they are, from a given soil, year after year, \n\h- 
out manure, they think it is only necessary for them to plant — Pro- 
vidence will take care of the harvest. But it is in the pursuit of 
this very system, that vast plains of the old world, once as fertile 
as Michigan or Ohio, have become desert wastes, and it is perfectly 
certain, that when we reach the goal of a himdred millions of peo- 
ple, we shall reach a famine soon afterwards, if some new and more 
enlightened system of agriculture than our national " skinning " sys- 
tem, does not beforehand spring up and extend itself over the 
country. 

And such a system can only be extensively disseminated and 
put in practice by raising the intelligence of farmers generally. We 
have, in common with the Agricultural Journals, again and again 
pointed out that this is mainly to be hoped for through a practical 
agi'icultural education. And yet the legislatures of our great agri- 
cultural States vote down, year after year, every bill reported by the 
friends of agriculture to establish schools. Not one such school, 
efficient and useful as it might be, if started with sufficient aid fi-om 
the State, exists in a nation of more than twenty millions of farmers. 
"What matters it," say the wise men of our State legislatures, "if 
the lands of the Atlantic States areworn out by bad farming ? Is not 



NATIONAL IGNORANCE OF THE AGRICULTURAL INTEREST. 395 

the GREAT WEST the gi-aiiary of the world ? " And so they build 
canals and railroads, and bring from the west millions of bushels of 
grain, and send not one fertilizing atom back to restore the land. 
And in this way we shall by-and-by make the fertile prairies as 
barren as some of the worn out farms of Virginia. And thus " the 
sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, even to the fourth 
generation ! " 



III. 



THE HOME EDUCATION OF THE RURAL DISTRICTS. 

January, 1852. 

WHILE the great question of Agricultural Schools is continually 
urged upon our legislatures, and, as yet, continually put off 
with fair words, let us see if there is not room for great improvement 
in another way — for the accomplishment of which the farming com- 
munity need ask no assistance. 

Our thoughts are turned to the subject of home education. It 
is, perhaps, the peculiar misfortune of the United States, that the 
idea of education is always affixed to something away from home. 
The boarding-school, the academy, the college — it is there alone we 
suppose it possible to educate the young man or the young woman. 
Home is only a place to eat, drink, and sleep. The parents, for the most 
part, gladly shuffle off the whole duties and responsibilities of training 
the heart, and the social nature of their children — believing that if 
the intellect is properly developed in the schools, the whole man is 
educated. Hence the miserably one-sided and incomplete character 
of so many even of our most able and talented men — their heads 
have been educated, but their social nature almost utterly neglected. 
Awkward manners and a rude address, are not the only evidences 
that many a clever lawyer, professional man, or merchant, offers to 
us continually, that his education has been wholly picked up away 
from home, or that home was never raised to a level calculated to 
give instruction. A want of taste for all the more genial and kindly 
topics of conversation, and a want of relish for refined and innocent 
social pleasures, mark such a man as an ill-balanced or one-sided 
man in his inner growth and culture. Such a man is often success- 



THE HOME EDUCATION OF THE RURAL DISTRICTS. 397 

fill at the bar or in trade, but he is uneasy and out of his element in 
the social circle, because he misunderstands it and despises it. His 
only idea of society is display, and he loses more than three-fourths 
of the delights of life by never having been educated to use 
his best social qualities — the qualities which teach a man how to love 
his neighbor as himself, and to throw the sunshine of a cultivated 
understanding and heart upon the little trifling events and enjoy- 
ments of everyday life. 

If this is true of what may be called the wealthier classes of the 
community, it is, we are sorry to say, still more true of the agricul- 
tural class. The agricultural class is continually complimented by 
the press and public debaters, — nay, it even compliments itself 
with being the " bone and sinew of the country " — the " substantial 
yeomanry " — the followers of the most natural and " noblest occupa- 
tion," (fee. &c. But the truth is, that in a countiy like this, know- 
ledge is not only powder; it is also influence and position ; and the 
farmers, as a class, are the least educated, and therefore the least 
powerful, the least influential, the least resjjected class in the com- 
munity. 

This state of things is all wrong, and we deplore it — but the way 
to mend it is not by feeding farmers with compliments, but with 
plain truths. As a natural consequence of belonging to the least 
powerful and least influential class, the sons and daughters of far- 
mers — we mean the smartest sons and daughters — those who might 
raise up and elevate the condition of the whole class, if they would 
recognize the dignity and value of their calling, and put their talents 
into it — are no sooner able to look around and choose for themselves, 
than they bid good bye to farming. It is too slow for the boys, 
and not genteel enough for the girls. 

All the education of the schools they go to, has nothing to do 
with making a farmer of a talented boy, or a farmer's wife of a bright 
and clever girl — but a great deal to do with unmaking them, by 
pointing out the superior advantages of merchandise, and the 
" honorable " professions. At home, it is the same thing. The 
farmer's son and daughter find less of the agreeable and attractive, 
and more of the hard and sordid at their fireside, than in the houses 
of any other class of equal means. This helps to decide them to 



398 AGRICULTURE. 

leave " dull care " to dull spirits, and choose some field of life "which 
has more attractions, as -well as more risks, than their own. 

We have stated all this frankly, because we believe it to be a 
ftilse and bad state of things which cannot last. The farming class 
of America is not. a rich class^but neither is it a poor one — 
while it is an independent class. It may and should wield the 
largest influence in the state, and it might and should enjoy the 
most happiness — the happiness belonging to intelligent minds, peace- 
ful homes, a natural and independent position, and high social and 
moral virtues. We have said much, already, of the special schools 
which the farmer should have to teach him agriculture as a practi- 
cal art, so that he might make it compare in profit, and in the daily 
application of knowledge which it demands, with any other pursuit. 
But we have said little or nothing of the farmer's home education 
and social influences — though these perhaps lie at the very root of 
the whole matter. 

We are not ignorant of the powerful influence of 'woman, in any 
question touching the improvement of our social and home educa- 
tion. In fact, it is she who holds all the power in this sphere ; it is 
she, who really, but silently, directs, controls, leads and governs the 
whole social machine — whether among farmers or others, in this 
country. To the women of the rural districts — the more intelligent 
and sensible of the farmers' wives and daughters, we appeal then, for 
a better understanding and a more correct appreciation of their true 
position. If they will but study to raise the character of the former's 
social life, the whole matter is accomplished. But this must be done 
truthfully and earnestly, and with a profound faith in the true no- 
bility and dignity of the farmer's calling. It must not be done by 
taking for social growth the finery and gloss of mere city customs 
and observances. It is an improvement that can never come from 
the atmosphere of boarding-schools and colleges as they are now 
constituted, for boarding-schools and colleges pity the farmer's igno- 
rance, and despise him for it. It must, on the contrary, come from 
an intelligent conviction of the honesty and dignity of rural life ; a 
conviction that as agriculture embraces the sphere of God's most 
natural and beautiful operations, it is the best calculated, when i-ightly 
understood, to elevate and engage man's faculties ; that, as it feeds 



THE HOME EDUCATION OF THE RURAL DISTRICTS. 399 

and sustains the nation, it is the basis of all material wealth ; and as 
it supports all other professions and callings, it is intrinsically the 
parent and su2:)erior of them all. Let the American farmer's wife 
never cease to teach her sons, that though other callings may be 
more lucrative, yet there is none so true and so safe as that of the 
farmer, — let her teach her daughters that, fascinating and brilliant as 
many other positions appear outwardly, there is none with so much 
intrinsic satisfaction as the life of a really intelligent proprietor of 
the soil, and above all, let her show by the spirit of intelligence, order, 
neatness, taste, and that heauttj of liroiyriety^ which is the highest 
beauty in her home^ that she really knows, understands, and enjoys 
her position as a wife and mother of a farmer's family' — let us have 
but a few earnest apostles of this kind, and the condition and pros- 
perity of the agricultural class, intellectually and socially, will 
brighten, as the day brightens after the first few bars of golden light 
tinge the eastern horizon. 

We are glad to see and record such signs of daybreak — in the 
shape of a recognition of the low social state which we deplore, and 
a cry for reform — which now and then make themselves heard, 
here and there in the country. Major Patrick — a gentleman whom 
we have not the pleasure of knowing, though we most cordially 
shake hands with him mentally, has delivered an address before the 
Jefferson County Agi'icultural Society in the State of New- York, in 
which he has touched with no ordinary skill upon this very topic. 
The two pictures which follow are as faithful as those of a Dutch 
master, and we hang them ujd here, conspicuously, in our columns, 
as being more worthy of study by our farmers' families, than any 
pictures that the Art-Union will distribute this year, among all those 
that will be scattered from Maine to Missouri. 

" An industrious pair, some twenty or thirty years ago, commenced 
the world with strong hands, stout hearts, robust health, and steady 
habits. By the blessing of Heaven their industry has been rewarded 
with plenty, and their labors have been crowned with success. The 
dense forest has given place to stately orchards of fruits, and fertile 
fields, and waving meadows, and verdant pastures, covered with eviden- 
ces of worldly prosperity. The log cabin is gone, and in its stead a fair 



400 AGRICULTURE. 

white house, two stories, and a wing with kitchen in the rear, flanked by 
barns, and cribs, and granaries, and dairy houses. 

" ]iut take a nearer view. Ha ! what means this mighty crop of 
unniown tliistles bordering the road ? For what market is that still 
mightier crop of pigweed, dock and nettles destined, that fills up the 
space they call the ' garden ? ' And look at those wide, unsightly 
tliickcts of elm, and sumac, and briers, and choke-cherry, that mark the 
lines of every fence ! 

" Approach the house, built in the road to be convenient, and save 
land I Two stories and a wing, and every blind shut close as a miser's 
fist, without a tree, or shrub, or flower to break the air of barrenness 
and desolation around it. There it stands, white, glaring and ghastly 
as a pyramid of bones in the desert. Mount the unfrequented door stone, 
grown over vnth vile weeds, and knock till your knuckles are sore. It 
is a beautiful moonlight October evening ; and as you stand upon that 
stone, a ringing laugh comes from the rear, and satisfies you that some- 
body lives there. Pass now around to the rear : but hold your nose • 
when you come within range of the piggery, and have a care that you 
don't get swamped in the neighborhood of the sink-spout. Enter the 
kitchen. Ila ! here they are all alive, and here thej^ live all together. 
The kitchen is the kitchen, the dining-room, the sitting-room, the room 
of all work. Here father sits with his hat on and in his shirt-sleeves. 
Around him are his boys and his hired men, some with hats and some 
with coats, and some with neither. The boys are busy shelling corn for 
samp ; the hired men are scraping whip-stocks and whittling bow-pins, 
throwing every now and then a sheep's eye and a jest at the girls, who, 
with their mother, are doing-up the house-work. The younger fry are 
building cob-houses, parching corn, and burning their fingers. Not a 
book is to be seen, though the winter school has commenced, and the 
master is going to board there. Privacy is a word of unknown meaning 
in that fiimily ; and if a son or daughter should borrow a book, it 
would be almost impossible to read it in that room , and on no occasion 
is the front house opened, except when ' company come to spend the 
afternoon,' or when things are brushed and dusted, and ' set to rights.' 

" Yet these are as honest, as worthy, and kind-hearted people as you 
will find anywhere, and are studying out some way of getting their 
younger children into a better position than they themselves occupy. 
They are in easy circumstances, owe nothing, and have money loaned 
on bond and mortgage. After much consultation, a son is placed at 
school that he may be fitted to go into a store, or possibly an office, to 
study a profession ; and a daughter is sent away to learn books, and 



THE HOME EDUCATION OF THE RURAL DISTRICTS. 401 

manners, and gentility. On this son or daughter, or both, the hard 
earnings of years are hivished ; and they are reared up in the behef that 
whatever smacks of the country is vulgar — that the farmer is neces- 
sarily ill-bred and his calling ignoble. 

" Now, will any one say that this picture is overdrawn ? I think 
not. But let us see if there is not a ready way to change the whole ex- 
pression and character of the picture, almost without cost or trouble. I 
would point out an easier, happier, and more economical way of educat- 
ing those children, far more thoroughly, while at the same time the 
minds of the parents are expanded, and they are prepared to enjoy, in 
the society of their educated children, the fruits of their own early in- 
dustry. 

" And first, let ihid front part of that house be thrown open, and the 
most convenient, agreeable, and pleasant I'oom in it, be selected as the 
family room. Let its doors be ever open, and when the work of the 
kitchen is completed, let mothers and daughters be found there, with 
their appropriate work. Let it be the room where the family altar is 
erected, on which the father offers the morning and the evening sacrifice. 
Let it be consecrated to Neatness, and Purity, and Truth. Let no hai 
ever be seen in that room on the head of its owner [unless he be a 
Quaker friend] ; let no coatless individual be permitted to enter it. If 
father's head is bald (and some there are in that predicament), his 
daughter will be proud to see his temples covered by the neat and grace- 
ful silken cap that her own hands have fashioned for him. If the coat 
he wears by day is too heavy for the evening, calicoes are cheap, and so 
is cotton wadding. A few shillings placed in that daughter's hand, in- 
sures him the most comfortable wrapper in the world ; and if his boots 
are hard, and the nails cut mother's carpet, a bushel of wheat once in 
three years, will keep him in slippers of the easiest kind. Let the table, 
which has always stood under the looking-glass, against the wall, be 
wheeled into the room, and plenty of useful (not ornamental) books and 
periodicals be laid upon it. When evening comes, bring on the lights — 
and plenty of them — for sous and daughters — all who can — will be most 
willing students. They will read, they will learn, they will discuss the 
subjects of their studies with each other; and parents will often be quite 
as much instructed as their children. The well conducted agricultural 
journals of our day throw a flood of light upon the science and practice 
of agriculture ; while such a work as Downing's Landscape Gardening 
[or the Horticulturist], laid one year upon that centre-table, will show 
its effects to every passer-by, for with books and studies like these, a 
purer taste is born, and grows more vigorously. 
26 



402 AGRICULTURE. 

" Pass along that road after five years working of this system in the 
family, and what-a change ! The thistles by the roadside enriched the 
manure heap for a year or two, and then they died. These beautiful 
maples and those graceful elmi, that beautify the grounds around that 
renovated home, were grubbed from the wide hedge-rows of five years 
ago ; and so were those prolific rows of blackberries and raspberries, and 
bush cranberries that show so richly in that neat garden, yielding 
abundance of small fruit in their season. The unsightly out-houses are 
screened from observation by dense masses of foliage ; and the many 
climbing plants that now hang in graceful festoons from tree, and porch, 
and column, once clambered along that same hedge-row. From the 
meadow, from the wood, and from the gurgling stream, many a native 
wild flower has been transplanted to a genial soil, beneath the home- 
stead's sheltering wing, and yields a daily offering to the household gods, 
by the hands of those fair priestesses who have now become their minis- 
iters. By the planting of a few trees, and shrubs, and flowers, and 
<ilimbing plants, around that once bare and uninviting house, it has be- 
come a tasteful residence, and its money value is more than doubled. A 
cultivated taste displays itself in a thousand forms, and at every touch 
of its hand gives beauty and value to property, A judicious taste, so 
far from plunging its possessor into expense, makes money for him. The 
land on which that hedge-row grew five years ago, for instance, has 
produced enough since to doubly pay the expense of grubbing it, and 
of transferring its fruit briers to the garden, where they have not only 
supplied the family with berries in their season, but have yielded many 
a surplus quart, to purchase that long row of red and yellow Antwerps, 
and English gooseberries ; to say nothing of the scions bought with 
their money, to form new heads for the trees in the old orchard. 

" These sons and daughters sigh no more for city life, but love with 
intense affection every foot of ground they tread upon, every tree, and 
every vine, and every shrub their hands have planted, or their taste has 
trained. But stronger still do their affections cling ioihsi family room, 
where their minds first began to be developed, and to that centre-table 
around which they still gather with the shades of evening, to drink in 
knowledge, and wisdom, and understanding. 

" The stout farmer, who once looked upon his acres only as a labo- 
ratory for transmuting labor into gold, now takes a widely different 
view of his possessions. His eyes are opened to the beautifid in nature, 
and he looks with reverence upon every giant remnant of the forest, that 
by good luck escaped his murderous axe in former days. No leafy mon- 
arch is now laid low without a stern necessity demands it ; but many a 



THE HOME EDUCATION OF THE RURAL DISTRICTS. 408 

vigorous tree is planted in the hope that the children of his children may 
gather beneath the spreading branches, and talk with pious gratitude of 
him who planted them. No longer feeling the need of taxing his phy- 
sical powers to the utmost, his eye takes the place of his hand, when 
latter grows weary, and inind directs the operations of labor. See him 
stand and look with delighted admiration at his sons, his educated sons, 
as they take hold of every kind of work, and roll it off with easy mo- 
tion, but with the power of mind in every stroke. 

" But it is the proud mother who takes the solid comfort, and won- 
ders that it is so easy after all, when one knows how, to live at ease, 
enjoy the society of happy daughters and contented sons, to whom the 
city folks make most respectful bows, and treat vrith special deference, 
as truly well-bred ladies and gentlemen. 

" Now, this is no more a fancy picture than the other. It is a pro- 
cess that I have watched in many families, and in different States. The 
results are everywhere alike, because they are natural. The same 
causes will always produce the same effects, varying circumstances only 
modifying the intensity." 



IV. 



HOW TO ENRICH THE SOIL. 

November, 1849. 

GOOD cultivation depends on nothing so mucli as the supply of 
an abtmdance of food. And yet there are hundreds and thou- 
sands of cultivators who do not recognize this fact in their practice. 
They feed their horses and cows regularly, because it is undeniable 
that they have mouths and stomachs ; and experience has demon- 
strated, that not to keep these sufficiently supplied amounts at last 
to starvation. But, because a plant has a thousand little concealed 
mouths, instead of one wide, gaping one, — because it finds enough 
even in poor soils to keep it from actually starving to death, igno- 
rant cultivator appear to consider that they deserve well of their 
trees and plants, if they barely keep their roots covered with earth. 
They make plantations in thin soil, or ujion lands exhausted of all 
inorganic food by numberless croppings, and then wonder why they 
succeed so poorly in obtaining heavy products. 

Too much, therefore, can never be written about manures. After 
all that has been said about them, they are yet but little under- 
stood ; and there is not one person in ten thousand, among all those 
owning gardens in this country, who does not annually throw away, 
or neglect to make use of, some of the most valuable manures for 
trees and plants, — manures constantly within his reach, and yet 
entirely neglected. 

We must therefore throw out a few seasonable hints, on the 
preparation and use of manures, which we hope may aid such of 



HOW TO ENRICH THE SOIL. 405 

our readers as are anxious to feed their trees and plants in such a 
generous manner as to deserve a grateful return. 

Among the first and best of wasted manures, constantly before 
our eyes in the autumn, are the falling leaves of all deciduous trees. 
When we remember that these leaves contain not only all the aub- 
stances necessary to the growth of the plants from Avhich they fall ; 
but those substances in the proportions actually needed for new 
growth, it is surprising that we can ever allow a bavrowful to be lost. 
The whole riddle of the wonderful growth of giant forests, on laud 
not naturally rich, ^nd to which nature scarce allows a particle of 
Avhat is commonly called manure, lies hidden in the deep beds of 
fallen leaves which accumulate over the roots, and, by their gradual 
decay, furnish a plentiful supply of the most suitable food for the 
trees above them. Gather and take away from the trees in a wood 
this annual coat of leaves, and in a few seasons (unless manure is 
artificially given), the wood will begin to decline and go to decay. 
Hence, w"e must beseech all our good orchardists and fruit-growers 
not to forget that dead leaves are worth looking after. They should 
be held fast in some way, either by burying them about the roots 
of the trees from which they fall, or by gathering them into the 
compost heap, to be applied when duly decomposed in the spring. 

And this leads us to say that an excellent, and perhaps the best 
mode of using leaves for the orchard, fruit-garden, or any planta- 
tations of trees or shrubs, is the following : Take fresh lime and 
slake it with brine (or water saturated with salt), till it falls to a 
powder. This powder is not common lime, but muriate of lime. 
Gather the leaves and lay them up in heaps, sprinkling over every 
layer with this new compound of lime, at the rate of about four 
bushels to a cord of leaves. This will be ready for use in about a 
month if the weather is mild, or it may lie all winter, to be used in 
the spring ; but in either case, the heap should be turned over once 
or twice. The lime decomposes the leaves thoroughly; and the 
manure thus formed is one of the most perfect composts known for 
treen of all kinds. We need not add that its value to any given 
kind of tree, as, for example, the pear, the apple, or the oak, is in- 
creased by using the leaves of that tree only ; though a mass of 
mixed leaves gives a compost of great value for trees and shrubs 



406 AGRICULTURE. 

generally. The practice in the best vineyards, of burying the leaves 
of each vine at its root, every autumn, is not only one of the most 
successful modes of manuring that plant, but one founded in the 
latest discoveries in science. 

The most economical mode of making manure, in most parts of 
the country, is that of using muck or peat from swamps. Though 
worth little or nothing in its crude state, it contains large quantities 
of the best food for trees and plants. No cultivator, who has it at com- 
mand, should complain of the difficulty of getting manure, since he can 
so easily turn it into a compost, equal in bulk to^-farm-yard manure. 

The cheapest mode of doing this, is, undoubtedly, to place it in 
the stalls underneath the cattle for a few days, and then lay it up 
with the barn-yard manure, in the proportion of one part muck to 
six or eight parts manure. The whole will then ferment, and be- 
come equal in value to the ordinary product of the barn-yard. But 
a much more practicable mode for horticulturists — who are not all 
farmers with cattle yards — is that of reducing it by means of ashes, 
or lime slaked with brine. 

As we have already pointed out how to use ashes, and as we 
think, after what we have observed the past season, the latter mode 
gives a compost still more valuable for many trees than ashes and 
muck, we recommend it to the trial of all those forming composts 
for their orchards and gardens. The better mode is to throw out 
the peat from the swamps now, or in winter, expose it to the action 
of the frost, and, early in the spring, to mix it with the brine-slaked 
lime, at the rate of four bushels to the cord. It should be allowed 
to lie about six weeks. The good effects of this compost, when ap- 
plied as a manure to the kitchen garden, or mixed with the soil in 
planting trees, are equally striking and permanent. 

We cannot let the opportunity pass by without saying a word 
or two about that much lauded and much abused substance — guano. 
Nothing is more certain than that, in Peru and England, this is the 
best of all manures ; or that in the United States, as it has hitherto 
been used, it is one of the woret. Now, as a substance cannot thus 
wholly change its nature in these different countries without some 
good reason, we are naturally led to inquire, what is the secret of 
its success ? 



HOW TO ENRICH THE SOIL. 407 

If we recall to mind the facts, that in Peru, guano is no sooner 
applied than the land is irrigated, and that in England no sooner is 
it spread over the land than a shower commences ; and that this 
shower, or something very near akin to it, keeps itself up all sum- 
mer long, in the latter country ; and if we then recollect, that in the 
middle States, five summers out of six, any substance applied near 
tlie surface of the ground is as dry as a snufi"-box, for the most part 
of the time, from June to September, we shall not be greatly at a 
loss to know why so many persons, in this country, believe, guano to 
be nothing more or less than a " humbug." 

If any very good proof of this were wanted, we need go no fur- 
ther than to the exotic florists in our cities, who cultivate their plants 
in pots, for their experience. They are nearly the only class of 
cultivators among us who are sturdy champions for the use of guano. 
The reason is plain. They use it only in the liquid state, and apply 
it so as to give the plants under their care every now and then a 
good wholesome drink, — a thorough soaking of a sort of soup more 
relishing to them than any in M. Soyer's new cookery book, to an 
epicure in a London club-house. 

Now it is quite impossible for an American cultivator to do any 
thing worth mentioning, in the way of watering his trees or crops 
"with liquid guano ; partly because labor is too dear, but mainly be- 
cause the air is so dry and hot, that in a few hours the earth is drier 
than before ; and so all good effects are at an end. What then is 
to be done, to enable us to use guano with success ? 

We answer in a few words. Use it in the autumn. 

We know this is quite contrary to the advice of j^revious writers, 
and that it will be considered by many a great waste of riches. But 
our advice is founded on experience, — an ounce of which, in such a 
matter as this, is worth a ton of theory drawn from observation in 
other climates. 

After having tried guano in various ordinary modes, at the usual 
season, and with so little satisfaction as to find ourselves among the 
skeptics as to its merits for this country, we at last made trial of it in 
the autumn. We spread it over the soil of the kitchen garden, be- 
fore digging it up at the approach of winter, and, to our astonisli- 
ment, found our soil ?o ti'eated more productive, even in veiy dry 



408 AGRICULTURE. 

seasons, than we had ever known it before. We have also recom- 
mended it as an autumnal manure for enfeebled fruit trees (turning 
it under the surface at once with a spade), and find it wonderfully 
improved in luxuriance and vigor. In short, our observations for 
the past two years liave firmly convinced us, that in all parts of the 
country, where the climate is hot and dry from June to October, 
guano should be used in the autumn. Applied at that season, and 
turned under the surface by the plough or spade, so as not to waste 
its virtues in the air, or by surface rains, its active qualities are gra- 
dually absorbed by the soil, and, so far from being lost, are only 
rendered more completely soluble, and ready for feeding the plants 
when the spring opens. 

Guano, applied as a top-dressing, or near the surface, in the 
spring, is undoubtedly a manure of little permanence, — generally 
lasting only one season ; for it always loses much of its virtue in the 
atmosphere. But when buried beneath the surface, it becomes in- 
corporated with the soil, and its good efl:ects last several seasons. 

The common rate of manuring farm lands is three hundred 
pounds of guano to the acre. But when old gardens are to be ma- 
nured, or worn-out orchards or fruit-yards renovated, we find six 
hundred pounds a better dressing. We would recommend its use 
at any time between the present moment and the frosts of winter. 
It should be spread evenly over the surface, and immediately turned 
at least three inches below it. 

At the present price of guano, it is certainly the cheapest of all 
manures to be bought in the market ; and as it is undeniably richer 
in all the elements necessary for most crops than any other single 
substance, it deserves to have a more thorough trial at the hands of 
the American public. We commend it anew to all those who have 
once failed, and beg them to try it once more, using it in the 
autumn. 

The large proportion of phosphate of lime which exists in Peru- 
vian guano, makes it very valuable for fruit-growers ; and a good 
dressing of guano — so that it visibly covers the surface under each 
tree — dug under during the month of November, will certainly give 
a most thrifty and healthy start to the next season's growth, as well 
as prepare the ti-ee for the highest state of productiveness. The 



HOW TO ENRICH THE SOIL. 409 

concentrated form of guano, saving, as it does, so much labor in 
carriage and spreading over the soil, is no small recommendation in 
its favor to those whose finances admonish them to practise economy 
of means and time. 

We might enlarge upon manures, so as to occupy volumes. 
But it will suffice for the present, if we have drawn the attention of 
our readei-s to the fact, that food must be supplied, and that the 
present is the time to set about it. 



V. 



A CHAPTER ON AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 

December, 1849. 
" 1\/rOVABLE property, or capital, may procure a man all the 
JJjL advantages of wealtli ; but property in land gives him 
much more than this. It gives him a place in the domain of the 
world ; it unites his life to the life which animates all creation. 
Money is an instrument by which man can procure the satisfaction 
of his wants and his wishes. Landed property is the establishment 
of man as sovereign in the midst of nature. It satisfies not only his 
wants and his desires, but tastes deeply implanted in his nature. For 
his family, it creates that domestic country called home^ with all the 
loving sympathies and all the future hopes and projects which peo- 
ple it. And whilst property in land is more consonant than any 
other to the nature of man, it also affords a field of activity the most 
favorable to his moral develoj^ment, the most suited to inspire a just 
sentiment of his nature and his powers. In almost all the other 
trades and professions, whether commercial or scientific, success ap- 
pears to depend solely on himself — on his talents, address, prudence 
and vigilance. In agricultural life, man is constantly in the pre- 
sence of God, and of his power. Activity, talents, prudence and 
vigilance, are as necessary here as elsewhere to the success of his 
labors ; but they are evidently no less insuSicient than they are ne- 
cessary. It is God who rules the seasons and the temperature, the 
sun and the rain, and all those phenomena of nature which deter- 
mine the success or the failure of the labors of man on the soil 
which he cultivates. There is no pride which can resist this de- 
pendence, no address which can escape it. Nor is it only a senti- 



A CHAPTER ON AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 411 

ment of humanity, as to bis power over his own destiny, which is 
thus inculcated upon man ; he learns also tranquillity and patience. 
He cannot flatter himself that the rnost ingenious inventions, or the 
most restless activity, will secure his success ; when he has done all 
that depends upon himself for the cultivation and fertilization of the 
soil, he must wait with resignation. The more profoundly we ex- 
amine the situation in which man is placed, by the possession and 
cultivation of the soil, the more do we discover bow rich it is in 
salutary lessons to his reason, and benign influences on bis charac- 
ter. Men do not analyze these facts ; but they have an instinctive 
sentiment of them, which powerfully contributes to the peculiar re- 
spect in which they hold property in land, and to the preponder- 
ance which that kind of property enjoys over every other. This 
preponderance is a natural, legitimate, and salutary fact, which, espe- 
cially in a great country, society at large has a strong interest in 
recognizing and respecting." 

We have quoted this sound and excellent expose, of the import- 
ance and dignity of the landed interest, from a late pamphlet by a 
great continental statesman, only to draw the attention of our agri- 
cultural class to their position in all countries — whether monarchical 
or republican — and especially to the fact, that upon the intelligence 
and prosperity of the owners of the soil, here, depend lai-gely the 
strength and security of our government, and the well working of 
most of its best institutions. 

Where, then, must we look for the explanation of the fact, that 
in every country the cultivators of the»soil are the last to avail them- 
selves of the advantages of skill and science ? That every where 
they are the last to demand of government a share of those benefits 
which are continually heaped upon less important, but more saga- 
cious and more clamorous branches of the body politic ? 

Is it because, obliged to trust largely to nature and Providence, 
they are less active in seizing the advantages of education than 
tliose whose intellect, or whose inventive powers, are daily tasked 
for their support, and who cultivate their powers of mind in order 
to live by their exercise ? 

These are pertinent questions at this moment ; for it is evident 
that we are on the eve of a great change in the future position and 



412 AGRICULTURE. 

influence of the agi'icultural class in this country. The giant that 
tills the soil is gradually wakening into conscious activity ; he per- 
ceives his ovv^n resources ; he begins to feel that upon his shoulders 
rests the state ; that from his labor come the material forces that 
feed the national strength ; that from his loins are largely drawn 
the strong men that give force and stability to great impulses and 
sound institutions in republican America. 

Is it to be sujjposed that with this newly awakening conscious- 
ness of the meaning and value of his life, the farmer — the owner of 
the soil in America — is not to seize any advantages to develope his 
best faculties ? Does any thinking man believe that such a class 
will continue to plough and delve in an ignorant routine, in an age 
when men force steam to almost annihilate space and lightning to 
outrun time ? 

And this brings us at once to the great topic of the day, with 
the farmer — agricultural schools. 

Now, that it is confidently believed that we are to have a great 
agricultural school in the State of New- York — a school which will 
probably be the prototype of many in the other States — some diver- 
sity of opinion exists as to the character of that school. 

" Let it be a school for practical farming — a school in which 
farmers' sons shall be taught how to plough and mow, and ' make 
both ends meet,' and show farmers how they can make money," 
says one. 

" Give us a school in which the science of agriculture shall be 
taught, where the farmer's s«n shall be made a good chemist, a 
good mathematician, a good naturalist, — yes, and even taught 
Greek and Latin, etc., so that he shall be as well educated as any 
gentleman's son," says the second. 

" A form school ought to be able to support itself, or it is worth 
nothing," says a third. 

" It should be liberally endowed by the State, so as to secure 
the best talent in the country, or it will be the nest of charlatans," 
says a fourth. 

" It should be a model farm, where only the best practice and 
the most profitable modes of cultivation should be seen," says a 
fifth. 



A CHAPTER ON AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 413 

" It should be an experimental farm, where all the new theories 
could be tested, in order to find out what is of real value," says 
a sixth. 

And thus, there is no end to the variety of projects for an agri- 
cultural school, — each man building on a different platform. 

Yet there must be some real and solid foundation on which to 
erect the edifice of a great educational institution for farmers. And 
we imagine these supposed differences of opinion may all be recon- 
ciled, if we examine a little the sources from whence they originate. 

Agriculture is both a science and an art. It may be studied in 
the closet, the laboratory, the lecture-room ; so that a man may 
have a perfect knowledge of it in his head, and not know how to 
perform well a single one of its labors in the field ; or it may be 
gained by rote in the fields, by one who cannot give you the reason 
for the operation of a single law of nature which it involves. The 
first is mere theory — the second, mere practice. 

It is easy to see, that he who is only a theorist is no more likely 
to raise good crops profitably, than a theoretical swimmer is to cross 
the Hellespont like Leander ; and that the mere practical former is 
as little likely to improve on what he has learned by imitation, as 
his horse is to invent a new mode of locomotion. 

The diflierence of opinion, regarding the nature or the province 
of an agricultural school, seems mainly to grow out of the different 
sides from which the matter is viewed — whether the advocate favors 
science or practice most, — forgetting that the well-educated agri- 
culturist should combine in himself both the science and the art 
which he professes. 

The difference between knowledge and wisdom is nowhere better 
illustrated than in a mixed study, like agriculture. Knowledge 
may be either theoretical or practical ; but wisdom is " knowledge 
put in actionP What the agricultural school, which this age and 
country now demands, must do to satisfy us, is to teach — not alone 
the knowledge of the books — not alone the practice of the fields, but 
that agricultural luisdom which involves both, and which can never 
be attained without a large development of the powers of the pupil 
in both directions. His head and hands must work together. He 
must try all things that promise well, and know the reason of his 



414 AGRICULTURE. 

failure as well as his success. To this end, he must not be in the 
hands of quack chemists and quack physiologists in the lecture 
halls, or those of chimerical farmers or dull teamsters in the fields. 
Hence, the State must insist upon having, for teachers, only the 
ablest men ; men who will teach wisely, whether it be chemistry or 
ploughing, — teach it in the best and most thorough manner, so 
that it may become wisdom for the pupil. Such men are always 
successful in their own sphere and calling, and can no more be had 
for the asking than one can have the sun and stars. They must be 
sought for and carried off by violence, and made to understand that 
the State has a noble work for them, which she means to have 
rightly and well done. 

To achieve this, an agricultural school must be planned, neither 
with a lavish nor a niggardly spirit. As agriculture is especially 
an industrial art, the manual labor practice of that art should be an 
inevitable part of the education and discipline of the pupils. But 
to base the operation of the school upon the plan of immediate 
profit, in all its branches, solely, would, we conceive, cut oflF in a 
great degree the largest source of profit to the country at large. 
The pupils would leave the school either as practical farmers atler a 
single model, or they would leave it with their heads full of unsatis- 
fied longings after theories which they had not been permitted to 
work out. They would be destitute of that wisdom which comes 
only from knowledge and experience combined, and would go home 
only to fail in applying a practice suited to a different soil from 
their o^, or to indulge (at a large personal loss) theories which 
might have been for ever settled in company with a hundred others, 
at the smallest possible cost to the State. 

AVe rejoice to see the awakened zeal of the farmers of the State 
of New- York, in this subject of agricultural education. We rejoice 
to find a large majority of our legislature wafmly seconding and 
supporting their wishes ; and most of all, we rejoice to see a gov- 
ernor who unceasingly lu'ges upon our law-makers the value and 
necessity of a great agricultural school. One of our contemporaries 
— the editor of the Working Farmer — has aptly remarked that 
Washington Avas our only great statesman who had " the moral 
courage to advocate the rights of farmers. Statesmen mistake the 



A CHAPTER ON AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 415 

more apparent praise of other classes for the praise of the majority." 
If, however, the views of Hamilton Fish, regarding this subject, are 
carried out by the legislature of this State, the people will owe him 
a great debt of gratitude, for urging the formation of an educational 
institution, which will, both directly and indirectly, do more to ele- 
vate the character of the great industrial class of the nation, and 
develope the agricultural wealth of the country at large, than any 
step which has been taken since the foundation of the republic. 

An agricultural college, for the complete education of farmers, 
where the wisest general economy of farming, involving all its main 
scientific and practical details, successfully established in the State 
of New- York, will be the model and type of a similar institution in 
every State in the Union. Its influence will be speedily felt in all 
parts of the country ; and it is therefore of no little importance that 
the plan adopted by the legislature should be one worthy of the ob- 
ject in view, and the ripeness of the times. 

Above all, when a good plan is adopted, let it not be rendered 
of little value by being intrusted for execution to the hands of those 
who stand ready to devour the loaves and fishes of State patronage. 
It is easy to devise, but it is hard to execute wisely ; and we warn 
the farmers in our legislature, the State Agricultural Society 
(which has already done such earnest service in this good cause), 
and the Executive, to guard against a failure in a great and ^wise 
scheme, by intrusting its execution to any but those whose compe- 
tence to the task is beyond the shadow of a doubt. 



VI. 



A FEW WORDS ON THE KITCHEN GARDEN. 

April, 1848. 

THE Kitchen Garden is at once the most humble and the most 
useful department of horticulture. It can no more be allowed 
to stand still than the sun himself. Luckily (or unluckily), man 
must eat ; and, omnivorous as he is, he must gather food from both 
the animal and the vegetable kingdom. 

Now there are, we trust, few of our readers who need an argu- 
ment to prove what a wide difference is very often found between 
vegetables grown in different gardens ; how truly the products of one 
shall be small, tough, and fibrous, and those of another, large, ten- 
der, and succulent. Sometimes the former defects are owing to bad 
culture, but more frequently to unsuitable soil. It is to this latter 
condition of things that we turn, with the hope of saying something 
which, if not new, shall at least be somewhat useful, and to the 
point. 

Nothing, in any temperate climate, is easier than the general culti- 
vation of vegetables in most parts of the United States. With our 
summer sun, equal in heat and brilliancy to that of the equator, we can 
grow the beans of Lima, the melons of the Mediterranean, the toma- 
toes and egg-plants of South America, without hot-beds ; and with 
such ease and profusion that itfillsanewly arrived English or French 
gardener with the most unqualified astonishment. Hence, in all good 
soils, with a smaller amount of labor than is elsewhere bestowed in 
the same latitudes, our vegetables are produced in the most prodigal 
abundance. 



A FEW WORDS ON THE KITCHEN GARDEN.. 417 

But now for the exceptions. Every man cannot " locate " him- 
self in precisely that position where the best soil is to be found. Cir- 
cumstances, on the contrary, often force us to build houses, and make 
kitchen gardens, where Dame Nature evidently never contemplated 
such a thing ; where, in fact, instead of the rich, deep accumulations 
.of fertile soil, that she frequently offers us in this country, she has 
only given us the " short commons" allowance oi sand or clay. 

The two kinds of kitchen gardens among us, which most demand 
skill and intelligent labor, are those which are naturally too sandy 
or too clayey. It is not difficult, at a glance, to see how these might 
be, and ought to be treated to improve them greatly. But we have 
observed — such is the force of habit — that nine-tenths of those who 
have gardens of this description, go on in the same manner as their 
neighbors who have the best soil, — manuring and cultivating pre- 
cisely in the ordinary way, and then grumbling in quite a different 
mode about short crops, and poor vegetables, instead of setting about 
remedying the evil in good earnest. 

The natural remedy for a heavy clay soil in a kitchen garden, is 
to mix sand with it. This acts like a charm upon the stubborn 
alumina, and, allowing the atmospheric influences to penetrate where 
they were formerly shut out, gives a stimulus, or rather an opportu- 
nity, to vegetable growth, which quickly produces its result in the 
quantity and quality of the crops. 

But it not unfi-equently happens that sand is not to be had 
abundantly and cheaply enough to enable the proprietor of mode- 
rate means to effect this beneficial change. In this case, we propose 
to the kitchen gardener to achieve his object by another mode, 
equally efficient, and so easy and cheap as to be within the reach of 
almost every one. 

This is, to alter the texture of too heavy soils, by burning a por- 
tion of the clay. 

Very few of our practical gardeners seem to be aware of two 
important facts. First, that clay, when once burnt, never regains 
its power of cohesion, but always remains in a pulverized state ; and 
therefore is just as useful, mechanically, in making a heavy soil 
light, as sand itself. Second, that burnt clay, by its power of attract- 
ing from the atmosphere those gases which are the food of ve2:e- 
27 



418 AGRICULTURE. 

tables, is really a most excellent manure itself. Hence, in any clayey 
kitclien garden, where brush, faggots, or refuse fuel of any descrip- 
tion can be had, there is no reason why its cold compact soil should 
not be turned at once, by this process of burning the clay, into one 
comparatively light, warm, and productive.* 

The difficulty which stands in the way of the kitchen gardener, 
who has to contend with a very light and too sandy soil, is its want 
of capacity for retaining moisture, and the consequent failure of the 
summer crops. • 

In some instances, this is very easily remedied. We mean in 
those cases where a loam or heavier subsoil lies below the surface. 
Trenching, or subsoil -ploughing, by bringing up a part of the alu- 
mina from below, and mixing it with the sand of the surface soil, 
remedies the defect very speedily. But, where the subsoil is no bet- 
ter than the top, or perhaps even worse, there are but two modes of 
overcoming this bad constitution of the soil. One of those, is to 
grasp the difficulty at once, by applying a coat of clay to the surface 

* A simple mode of burning clay in the kitchen garden is the following : 
Make a circle of eight or ten feet in diameter, by raising a wall of sods a 
couj^le of feet high. Place a few large sticks loosely crosswise in the bottom, 
and upon those pile faggots or brush, and set fire to the whole. As soon as 
it is well lighted, commence throwing on lumps of clay, putting on as much 
at a time as may be without quite smothering the fire. As soon as the fire 
breaks through a little, add more brush, and then^jover with more clay, till 
the heap is raised as high as it can be conveniently managed. After lying 
till the whole is cold, or nearly so, the heap should be broken doAvn, and 
any remaining lumps pulverized, and the whple spread over the surface and 
well dug in. • 

"As an example," says Loudon, " of the strong clayey soil of a garden 
having been improved by burning, we may refer to that of Willersly Castle, 
near Mattock, which the gardener there, Mr. Stafford, has rendered equal 
in friability and fertility to any garden soil in the country. " When I first 
came to tliis place," says Mr. Stafford, " the garden was for the most part a 
strong clay, and that within nine inches of the surface ; even the most com- 
mon article would not live on it ; no weather appeared to suit it ; at one 
time being covered by water, at another time rendei-ed impenetrable by 
being too dry. Having previously witnessed the good effects of burning 
clods, I commenced the process, and produced, in a few days, a composition 
three feet deep, and equal, if not superior, to any soil in the country.' " — 
Suburban Horticulturist. 



A FEW WORDS ON THE KITCHEN GARDEN. 419 

of the soil, and mixing it witli the soil as you would manure ; the 
other (a less expensive and more gradual process), is to manure the 
kitchen garden every year with compost, in which clay or strong 
loam forms a large proportion. 

It may seem, to many persons, quite out of the question to at- 
terajit to ameliorate sandy soils by adding clay. But it is surprising 
how small a quantity of clay, thoroughly intermingled with the 
loosest sandy soil, will give it a difterent texture, and convert it into 
a good loam. And even in sandy districts, there are often valleys 
and low places, quite near the titchen garden, where a good stock 
of clay lies (perhaps quite unsuspected), ready for uses of this kind. 

In thetTournal of the Agricultural Society of England, a case 
is quoted (vol ii., p. 67), where the soil was a ^oMte sand, varying 
in depth from one to four feet ; it was so sterile that no crops could 
ever be grown upon it to profit. By giving it a top-dressing of clay, 
at the rate of 150 cubic yards to the acre, the whole surface of the 
farm so treated was improved to the depth of ten or twelve inches, 
so as to give excellent crops. 

Since a soil, once rendered more tenacious in this way, never 
loses this tenacity, the unprovement of the kitchen garden, where 
economy is necessary, might be carried on gradually, by taking one 
or two compartments in hand every year ; thus, in a gradual man- 
ner, bringing the whole surface to the desired condition. 

A great deal may also be done, as we have just suggested, by a 
judicious system of manuring very sandy soils. It is the common 
practice to enrich these soils precisely like all others ; that is, with 
the lighter and more heating kinds of manures ; stable-dung for 
example. Nothing could be more injudicious. Every particle of 
animal manure used in too light a soil ought, for the kitchen garden, 
to be composted, for some time previously, with eight or ten times 
its bulk of strong loam or clay. In this way, that change in the 
soil, so much to be desired, is brought about ; and the whole mass 
of clay-compost, made in this way, is really equal in value, for such 
sandy soils, to the same bulk of common stable manure. 

Whatever the soil of a kitchen-garden, our experience has 
taught us that it should be deep. It is impossible that the steady 
and uniform moisture at the roots, indispensable to the continuous 



420 AGRICULTURE. 

gi'owth of many crops, during the summer months, can be main- 
tained in a soil wliich is only one sjpade deep. Hence, we would 
trench or subsoil-j)lough all kitchen-gardens (taking care, first, that 
they are well drained), whether sandy or clayey in texture. We 
know that many persons, judging from theory rather than practice, 
cannot see the value of deepening soils already too porous. But we 
have seen its advantages strongly marked in more than one instance, 
and therefore recommend it with confidence. It is only necessary 
to examine light soils, trenched and untrenched, to be convinced of 
this. The roots in the former penetrate and gather nourishment 
from twice the cubic area that they do in tJie former ; and they are 
not half so easily aflfected by the atmospheric changes of tempera- 
ture. 

Old gardens, that have been long cultivated, are greatly im- 
proved by trenching and reversing the strata of soil. The inorganic 
elements, or mineral food of plants, often become so much exhausted 
in long cultivated kitchen gardens, that only inferior crops can be 
raised, even with abundant supplies of animal manure. By turning 
up the virgin loam of the subsoil, and exposing it to the action of 
the atmosphere, its gradual decomposition takes place, and , fresh 
supplies of lime, potash, etc., are afi'orded for the vigorous growth 
of plants. 

We have only room for a single hint more, touching the kitchen 
garden. This is, to recommend the annual use of salt, in moderate 
quantities, sown broadcast over the whole garden early in the spring, 
and more especially on those quarters of it where vegetables are to 
be planted which are most liable to the attacks of insects that har- 
bor in the earth. We are satisfied that salt, spread in this way, 
before vegetation has commenced, or the earth is broken up for 
sowing seeds, at the rate of ten bushels per acre, is one of the best 
possible applications to the soil. 

It destroys insects, acts specifically on the strength of the stems, 
and healthy color of the foliage of plants, assists porous soils in 
collecting and retaining moisture, and is an admirable stimulant to 
the growtli of many vegetables. In all the Atlantic States, where 
it is easily and cheaply procured, it ought, therefore, to form an 
annual top-dressing for the whole kitchen garden. 



vn. 

A CHAT IN THE KITCHEN GAKDEN. 

October, 1849. 

EDITOR. We find you, as usual, in your kitchen gai'den. 
Admirable as all the rest of your place is, your own fancy 
seems to centre here. Do you find the esculents the most satisfac- 
tory of your various departments of culture ? 

Subscriber. Not exactly that ; but I find while the shrubbery, 
the lawn, the flowers, and even the fruit-trees, are well cared for 
and made much of by my family and my gardener, the kitchen 
garden is treated merely as a necessity. Now, as I estimate very 
highly the value of variety and excellence in our culinary vegeta- 
bles, I take no little interest in my kitchen garden, so that at last it 
has become a sort of hobby with me. 

Ed. We see evidences of that all around us. Indeed, we 
scarcely remember any place where so large a variety of excellent 
vegetables are grown as here. Artichokes, endive, sea-kale, cele- 
riac, winter melons and mushrooms, and many other good and rare 
things, in addition to what we usually find in country gardens. 

Suh. And what a climate ours is for growing fine vegetables. 
From common cabbages, that will thrive in the coldest climate, to 
egg-plants, melons and tomatoes, that need a tropical sun, — all may 
be so easily had for the trouble of easy culture in the open air ; 
and yet, strange to say, three-fourths of all country folks, blessed 
with land in fee simple, are actually ignorant of the luxury of good 
vegetables, and content themselves with potatoes, peas, beans and 



422 AGRICULTURE. 

corn ; and those, perhaps, of the poorest and least improved va- 
rieties. 

Ed. Still, you cannot say we stand still in these matters. Al- 
most every year, on the contrary, some new species or variety is 
brought forward, and, if it prove good, is gi-adually introduced into 
general cultivation. Look at the tomato, for instance. Twenty 
years ago, a few curious amateurs cultivated a specimen or two of 
this plant in their gardens, as a vegetable curiosity ; and the visitor 
was shown the " love apples" as an extraordinary proof of the odd 
taste of " French people," who outraged all natural appetites by 
eating such odious and repulsive smelling berries. And yet, at the 
present moment, the plant is gi-own in almost every garden from 
Boston to New Orleans ; may be found in constant use for three 
months of the year in all parts of the country ; and is cultivated 
by the acre by all our market gardeners. In fact, it is so popular, 
that it would be missed next to bread and potatoes. 

Suh. Quite right ; and a most excellent and wholesome vegeta- 
ble it is. It is almost unknown in England, even now ; and, in- 
deed, could only be raised by the aid of glass in that country, — a 
proof of how much better the sun shines for us than for the sub- 
jects of her majesty, across the Channel. But there is another 
vegetable which you see here, really quite as deserving as the to- 
mato, and which is very little known yet to the cultivators in the 
country generally. I mean the okra. 

Ed. Yes. It is truly a delicious vegetable. Whoever has 
once tasted the " gumbo soup," of the South, of which the okra is 
the indispensable material, has a recollection of a good thing, which 
will not easily slip from his memory. All over the southern States 
okra is cultivated, and held in the highest esteem. 

Sub. And there is no reason why it should not be equally so 
here. Except to the north of Albany, it will thrive perfectly well, 
and mature an abundance of its pods, with no trouble but that of 
planting it in a warm rich soil. See what a handsome sight is this 
plat, filled with it, though only ten yards square, — rich, luxuriant 
leaves, blossoms nearly as pretty as an African hibiscus, and pods 
almost as delicate and delicious as an East India bird's nest. It has 
kept my family in materials for soups and stews all the season, to 



A CHAT IN THE KITCHEN GARDEN. 423 

say nothing of our stock for winter use. And besides being so ex- 
cellent, it is, do you know, the most wholesome of all vegetables in 
summer. 

Ed. We know its mucilaginous qualities seem intended by na- 
ture to guard the stomach against all ill effects of summer tempe- 
rature in a hot climate. How do you account for its being so little 
known, though it has been in partial cultivation nearly as long as 
the tomato ? 

Sub. From the fact that inexperienced cooks alwa-ys blunder 
about the proper time to use it. They pluck it when the pod is 
two-thirds grown and quite firm, so that it colors the soup dark, and 
all its peculiar excellence is lost. Whoever gathers okra should 
know that, like sweet-corn, it must be in its tender, " milky state," or 
it is not fit for use. A day too old, and it is worthless. 

Ed. You spoke just now of okra for winter use. As your 
menage is rather famous for winter vegetables, we must beg you to 
make a clean breast of it to-day, since you are fairly in the talking 
mood, and tell us something about them. Begin with okra, if you 
please. 

Sub. Nothing so simple. To prepare most vegetables is, by 
the aid of our plentiful hot, dry weather, as easy as making raisins 
in Calabria. You have, for instance, only to cut the okra pods into 
slices or cross cuts, half an inch thick, spread them out on a board, 
or string them, and hang them up in an airy place to dry, and in a 
few days they will be ready to put away in clean paper bags for 
winter use ; when, for soups, they are as good as when fresh in 
summer. 

Ed. At what age do you take the pods for drying ? 

Sub. Exactly in the same tender state as for use when fresh. 

Ed. And the delicious Lima beans which you gave us — when 
we dined with you last Christmas Day — as green, plump, fresh and 
excellent as if just taken from the vines ? 

Siib. That is still easier. You have only to take the green 
beans and spread them thinly on the floor of the garret, or an airy 
loft ; they will dry without farther trouble, than turning them over 
once or twice. To have them in the best condition, they should be 
gathered a Uttle younger than they are usually for boiling in sum- 



424 AGRICULTURE. 

mer. Lima beans are so easily grown and prepared for winter use, 
and are so truly excellent, that my family usually dry enough for 
use every other day all winter ; and they are so fresh and tender 
(being soaked in warm water for twelve hours before cooking), that 
I have frequently some little difficulty in persuading my guests at a 
dinner in the holidays, that I have not a forcing house for beans, 
with the temperature of Lima all winter. 

JSd. That is an easy and simple process, and its excellence we 
well know from experience. But, best of all, and most rare of all, 
is the tomato, as we have eaten it here, in mid-winter. As we have 
seen many trials in preserving this capital vegetable for winter use, 
nearly all of which were partly or wholly failures, pray let us into the 
secret of your tomato formula, which we promise not to repeat to 
more than eight or ten thousand of our particular friends and 
readers. 

Sub. You are heartily welcome to tell it to twenty thousand. 
It is a real discovery for the gourmand in winter, who loves the 
pure, genuine, unalloyed and delicious acid flavor of the Solanum 
Lycopersicum, and knows how greatly it adds to the piquancy of a 
beef-steak, done to a second, and reposing, as Christopher North 
would say, in the mellow richness of its own brown juices. 

£d. Don't grow so eloquent over the remembrance as to forget 
the modus operandi of drying. Remember we must stake oui- repu- 
tation on its being equal to the genuine natural berry, when it is of 
the color of cornelian, and plucked in the dew of a Julj?^ morning. 

Sub. I remember. First, — gather the tomatoes. 

m. When? 

Stib. When they are quite ripe, least full of water, and most 
full of the tomato principle ; that is to say, in sunny weather in 
^uly or August. If you wait till September, or, rather, till the 
weather is so cold that the fruit is watery, you will fail in the pro- 
cess for want of flavor. 

JSd. Go on. 

Sub. Choose tomatoes of small or only moderate size. Scald 
them in boiling water. Next, — peel them, and squeeze them 
slightly. Spread them on earthen dishes, and place the dishes in a 
brick oven, after taking the bread out. Let them remain there till 



A CHAT IN THE KITCHEN GARDEN. 125 

the next morning. Then put them in bags, and hang them in a 
diy place. 

Ed. That is certainly not a difficult process, and may be put 
in practice every baking day by the most time-saving farmer's wife 
in the country. And the cooking ? 

Suh. Is precisely like that of the fresh tomato, except that the 
dried tomato is soaked in warm water a few hours beforehand. 
For soups, it may be used without preparation ; and a dish of this 
vegetable, dried in this way and stewed, is so exactly like" the fresh 
tomatoes in appearance and flavor, that he must be a nice connois- 
seur in such matters who could tell in what the difference consists. 

Ed. We can vouch most entirely for that ; and after thanking 
you for the detail, have only to regret that we could not have pub- 
lished it in midsummer, so that all our readers could have had a 
fine dish of tomatoes when the thermometer is down below zero. 

Suh. By steadily j^ursuing the tomato drying every baking 
day in July and August, we get enough to enable us to use it freely, 
and even profusely, as a winter vegetable ; not as an occasional va- 
riety, but a good heaping dishful very often. 

Ed. What is to be done with these small green melons which 
I see your man gathering in his basket ? It is so late now that 
they will not ripen, and they are the perquisites of the pigs, doubt- 
less. 

Sub. You never made a greater mistake. For the pigs ! Not 
if they were AVestphalia all over. Why, that is the most delicious 
vegetable we have, at this season of the year. " Butter would not 
melt in your mouth " more quickly than that vegetable, as you 
shall have it served up on my table to-day. 

Ed. Pray, what do you mean ? 

Sub. That these tardy after-crop musk-melons, trampled under 
foot and fed to the pigs, are the greatest delicacy of the season. 

Ed. Fricasced, I suppose ; or " cut and dried," for winter 
use ! 

Sub. By no means ; but simply cut in slices, about the fourth 
of an inch thick, and fi-ied exactly in the same manner as e^^g 
plants. Whoever tastes them so prepared, will immediately make 
a memorandum that egg plants are thenceforward tabooed, and that 



426 AGRICULTURE. 

melons, " rightly understood," are as melting and savory in their 
tender infancy, as they are luscious and sugary in their ripe ma- 
turity. 

Ed. We shall be glad to put it to the immediate proof. But 
we must bring this talk to a close, or we shall be suspected of hav- 
ing lost all taste but the taste for the flesh-pots of Egypt. 

Sub. But not till I have shown you my plat of " German 
greens," all growing for use next March, and my fine Walcheren 
cauliflowers, planted late, and which I shall " lift " at the first smart 
frost, and carry them into the cellar of my outbuildings, where they 
will flower and give me the finest and most succulent of vegetables 
all winter long, when my neighbors have only turnips and Irish po- 
tatoes. But you have taught the public how to manage all this in 
the previous number of your journal, so that I find every one 
begins to understand that it is as easy to have fine cauliflowers at 
Easter as Newtown Pippins. And now let us end this gossip and 
take a turn in the orchard, where I must show you my Bern-res and 
Bergamots. 



VIII. 

WASHINGTON, TlIE FARMER. 

A REVIEW. 

Lettkrs ov Agriculture, from His Excellency George Washington, to Ar- 
thur Young and Sir John Sinclair, etc. Edited by Frankun Knight. 
"Washington, 1847. Published by the Editor. New-York, Baker <fc 
Scribner. 1 vol. quarto, with plates, 198 pp. 

FOR a long time, the halo of Washington's civil and military 
glory has kept out of view his extraordinary talent in other di- 
rections. Mankind, too, are so reluctant to allow great men the 
meed of greatness in more than one sphere of action, that there has, 
we think, always been a national want of faith regarding the pre- 
eminence as an agriculturist, to which Washington is most unde- 
niably entitled. 

We are inclined to think that, considering the great disadvan- 
tages of the time in which he lived, he was one of the wisest, most 
successful, and most scientific farmers that America has ever yet 
produced. 

Washington, as it is well known, was a very large landed pro- 
prietor. Before the Revolution, he was one of the most extensive 
tobacco planters in Virginia. His crops of this staple, he shipped 
in his own name, to Liverpool or Bristol, loading the vessels that 
came up the Potomac, either at Mount Vernon, or some other con- 
venient point. In return, he imported from his agents abroad, im- 
proved agricultural implements, and all the better kinds of clothing, 
implements, and stores, needed in the domestic economy of his es- 



428 AGRICULTURE. 

tate. During the Revolution, although necessarily absent from 
Mount Vernon, he endeavored to cany out his plans by frequent 
and minute directions to his manager there. 

No sooner had the war closed, than Washington immediately 
retired to his beloved Mount Vernon, and was soon deeply immersed 
in the cares and pleasures of the lite of an extensive landed propri- 
etor. But it was by no means a life of indolent repose, though 
upon an estate large enough to secure him in the possession of 
every comfort. The very first year after the war, he directed his 
attention and his energies to the improvement of the mode of fann- 
ing then in vogue in the whole of that part of the country. 

He quickly remarked, that the system of the tobacco planters 
was fast exhausting the lands, and rendering them of little or no 
value. He entered into correspondence with the most distinguished 
scientific agriculturists in Great Britain, studied the ablest treatises 
then extant abroad on that subject, and immediately carried into 
practice the most valuable principles which he could draw from the 
soundest theory and practice then known. At a time when the 
planters were thinking of abandoning their worn-out lands, Wash- 
ington began a new and most excellent system of rotation of crops, 
based on a careful examination of the qualities of the soils, on his 
estate, and by substituting grains, grass, and root crops, for tobacco, 
he soon restored the soil to good condition, and found his income 
materially increasing, while his neighbors, who pursued the old sys- 
tem, were daily gi'owing poorer. 

Nothing was more remarkable, among the trials of this great 
man's character, and nothing contributed more to his success in all 
he undertook, than the complete manner in which he first mastered 
his subject, and the exact method in which he afterwards marked 
out and pursued his plans. 

In farming, this was evinced in the thoroughly systematic course 
of culture which he adopted on his Mount Vernon estate. This 
estate consisted of about 8000 acres, of which over 2000 acres, di- 
vided into five farms, were under cultivation. On his map of this 
estate, every field was numbered, and in his accompanying agricul- 
tural field-book, the crops were assigned to each field for several 
years in advance. So well had he studied the nature of the soils, 



WASHINGTON, THE FARMER. 429 

that with slight subdi^^sions and experimental deviations, this sci- 
entific system of rotation was pursued with great success, from about 
1Y85 to the close of his life. 

After about four years — the most agreeable, doubtless, of his 
whole life — passed at Mount Vernon, in its improved condition, he 
was again called, by the spontaneous voice of one people to the 
Presidency. Much has been said and written about the reluctance 
of Cincinnatus to leave his farm, and return to the service of the 
Roman Republic ; but the sources for regret in his position must 
have been small, compared to those which Washington felt, when 
he left Mount Vernon on this occasion. The farm of Cincinnatus, 
which has been rendered famous in classical history, was an heredi- 
tary allotment of four acres^ and its cultivation was part of the 
daily toil of his own hands. Mount Vernon, on the other hand, 
was one of the largest and loveliest estates in America ; it stood 
amid the rich landscape beauty of the Potomac, its beautiful lawns 
running down to the river, its serpentine walks of shrubbery, its 
fruit and flower-garden, planted by its master's own hands,* and its 
broad acres rendered productive by an intelligent and comprehen- 
sive system of agriculture of his own construction — think, oh ye 
who have never thus taken root in the soil, how hard it must have 
been for Washington the Farmer, to surrender again, even to the 
flattering wish of a whole nation, the life that he so much loved, for 
the hard yoke of what he felt to be the most difiicult public 
service. 

It is the best proof of how thoroughly devoted by natural taste 
was Washington to agriculture, that instead of leaving Mount Ver- 
non to the charge of the excellent agent Avhom he had well 
grounded in his own system of practice, and who could no doubt 
have continued that practice with success, he never lost sight for a 

* "Washington's residence exhibited every niaik of the cultivated and 
refined country gentleman. He appears to have had considerable taste ia 
oi-namei)tal gardening; he decorated liis pleasui-e-grounds with much effect : 
and his diary shows that he collected and planted a variety of rare trees 
and shrubs with his own hands, and watched their growth with the greatest 
interest. He employed skilful gardeners, and pruning was one of his favor- 
ite exercises. 



430 AGRICULTURE. 

moment, amid all the pressing cares of public life, of his rural home, 
or his favorite occupation. We can scarcely give a better idea of 
the man and his system, than by the following extract, touching 
this very portion of his life, from Sparks' admirable biography : 

" With his chief manager at Mount Vernon, he left full and mi- 
nute directions in writing, and exacted from him a weekly report, 
in which were registered the transactions of each day on all the 
farms, such as the number of laborers employed, their health or 
sickness, the kind and quantity of work executed, the progress in 
planting, sowing or harvesting the fields, the appearance of the 
crops at various stages of their growth, the effects of the weather 
on them, and the condition of the horses, cattle and other live stock. 
By these details, he Avas made perfectly acquainted with all that 
was done, and could give liis orders with almost as much precision 
as if he had been on the spot. Once a week, regularly, and some- 
times twice, he wrote to the manager, remarking on his report of 
the j^receding week, and giving new directions. These letters fre- 
quently extended to two or three sheets, and were always written 
with his own hand. Such was his laborious exactness, that the let- 
ter he sent away was usually transcribed from a rough draft, and a 
press copy was taken of the transcript, which was carefully filed 
away with the manager's report, for his future inspection. In this 
habit, he persevered with unabated diligence, through the whole 
eight years of his Pi-esidency, except during the short visits he oc- 
casionally made to Mount Vernon, at the close of the sessions of 
Congress, when his presence could be dispensed with at the seat of 
government. He, moreover, maintained a large correspondence on 
Agriculture with gentlemen in Europe and America. His letters to 
Sir John Sinclair, Arthur Young and Dr. Anderson, have been 
published, and are well known. Indeed his thoughts never seemed 
to fioio more freely, 7ior his pen move more easily, than when he was 
ivriting on Agriculture, extolling it as a most attractive pursuit, and 
describing the pleasure derived from it, and its superior claims, not 
only on the practical economist, hut on the statesman and philan- 
thropist!!'' 

The volume before us, which ]\Ir. Knight has given to the pub- 
lic, in a very handsome quarto form, consists mainly of the corres- 



■WASHINGTON, THE FARMER. 431 

pondence referred to in the preceding quotation. The letters to Sir 
John Sinclair are rendered more interesting bj^ their being facsimiles, 
showing the fine bold handwriting of their illustrious author. Be- 
sides, there is some very interesting collateral correspondence by 
Jefferson, Peters, and others, throwing additional light on the hus- 
bandry of that period. Engraved portraits of General and Mrs. 
Washington, views of the mansion at Mount Vernon, a map of the 
farms, etc., render the volume more complete and elegant. 

It is not as conveying instruction to the intelligent agriculturist 
of the present day, that we commend this work ; for the art and 
science of farming have made extraordinary progress since this early 
era in the history of our country. But it is as revealing a most 
interesting and little known portion of Washington's life and char- 
acter, in which his own tastes were more jjeculiarly gratified, and in 
which he was no less successful, than in any other phase of his won- 
derfully great and pure life. 



FRUIT. 



28 



FRUIT. 



I. 



A FEW WORDS ON FEUIT CULTURE. 

July, 1851. 

BY far the most imj^ortant branch of horticulture at the present 
moment in this country, is the cultivation of Fruit. The soil 
and climate of the United States are, on the whole, as favorable to 
the production of hardy fruits as those of any other country — and 
our northern States, owing to the warmth of the summer and the 
clearness of the atmosphere, are far more prolific of fine fruits than 
the north of Europe. The American farmer south of the Mohawk, 
has the finest peaches for the trouble of planting and gathering — 
while in England they are luxuries only within the reach of men of 
fortune, and even in Paris, they can only be ripened upon walls. 
B}' late reports of the markets of London, Paris, and New-York, we 
find that the latter city is far more abundantly supplied with fruit 
than either of the former — though finer specimens of almost any 
fruit may be found at very high prices, at all times, in Loudon and 
Paris, than in New-York. The fruit-grower abroad, depends upon 
extra size, beauty, and scarcity for his remuneration, and asks, some- 
times, a guinea a dozen for peaches, while the orchardist of New- 
York will sell you a dozen baskets for the same money. The result 
is, that while you may more easily find superb fruit in London and 
Paris than in New- York — if you can afford to pay for it — you know 



436 FRUIT. 

that not one man in a hundred tastes peaches in a season, on the 
other side of the water, while during the month of September, they 
are the daily food of our whole population. 

Within the last five years, the planting of orchards has, in the 
United States, been carried to an extent never known before. In 
the northern half of the Union, apple-trees, in orchards, liave been 
planted by thousands and hundreds of thousands, in almost every 
State. The rapid communication established by means of railroads 
and steamboats in all parts of the country, has operated most favor- 
ably on all the lighter branches of agriculture, and so many farmers 
have found their orchards the most profitable, because least expen- 
sive jmrt of their farms, that orcharding has become in some parts 
of the West, almost an absolute distinct species of husbandry. Dried 
apples are a large article of export from one part of the country to 
another, and the shipment of American apples of the finest quality 
to England, is now a i-egular and profitable branch of commerce. 
No apple that is sent from any part of the Continent will command 
more than half the price in Covent Garden market, that is readily 
paid for the Newtown pippin. 

The pear succeeds admirably in many parts of the United States 
— but it also fails as a market fruit in many others — and, though 
large orchai-ds have been planted in various parts of the countiy, 
we do not tliink the result, as yet, wan-ants the belief that the 
orchard culture of pears will be profitable generally. In certain 
deep soils — abounding with lime, potash, and phosphates, naturally, 
as in central New- York, the finest pears grow and bear like apples, 
and produce very large profits to their cultivators. Mr. Pardee's 
communication on this subject, in a former number, shows how 
largely the pear is grown as an orchard fruit in the State of New- 
York, and how profitable a branch of culture it has already 
become. 

In the main, however, we believe the experience of the last five 
years has led most cultivators — particularly those not in a region 
naturally favorable in its soil — to look upon a pear as a tree rather 
to be confined to the fruit-garden than the orchard ; as a tree not so 
hardy as the apple, but sufficiently hardy to give its finest fruit, pro- 
vided the soil is deep, and the aspect one not too much exposed to 



A FEW WORDS ON FRUIT CULTURE. 437 

violent changes of temperature. As the pear-tree (in its finer varie- 
ties) is more delicate in its bark than any other fruit-tree excepting 
the apricot, the best cultivators now agree as to the utility of sheath- 
ing the stem from the action of the sun all the year round — either 
by keeping the branches low and thick, so as to shade the trunk and 
principal limbs — the best mode — or by sheathing the stems with 
straw — thus preserving a uniform temperature. In all soils and cli- 
mates naturally unfavorable to the pear, the culture of this tree is 
far easier upon the quince stock than upon the pear stock ;" and this, 
added to compactness and economy of space for small gardens, has 
trebled the demand for dwarf pears within the last half-dozen years. 
The finest peai"s that make their appearance in our markets, are still 
the White Doyenne (or Virgalieu), and the Bartlett. In Philadel- 
phia the Seckel is abundant, but of late years the fruit is small and 
inferior, for want of the high culture and manuring which this pear 
demands. 

If we except the neighborhood of Rochester and a part of cen- 
tral New- York (probably the future Belgium of America, as re- 
gards the production of pears), the best fruit of this kind yet pro- 
duced in the United States is still to be found in the neighborhood 
of Boston. Neither climate nor soil are naturally favorable there, 
but the great pomological knowledge and skill of the amateur and 
professional cultivators of Massachusetts, have enabled them to make 
finer shows of pears, both as regards quality and variety, than have 
been seen in any part of the world. And this leads us to observe 
that the very fecility with which fruit is cultivated in America — 
consisting for the most part only in planting the trees, and gathering 
the crop — leads us into an error as to the standard of size and flavor 
attainable generally. One half the number of trees well cultivated, 
manured, pruned, and properly cared for, annually, would give a 
larger product of really delicious and handsome fruit, than is now 
obtained from double the number of trees, and thrice the area of 
ground. The difficulty usually lies in the want of knowledge, and 
the high price of labor. But the horticultural societies in all parts 
of the countr)'-, are gradually raising the ci'iterion of excellence 
among amateurs, and the double and treble prices paid lately by 
confectioners for finely-grown specimens, over the market value of 



438 FRUIT. 

ordinary fruit, are opening tlie eyes of market growers to the pecu- 
niary advantages of high cultivation. 

Perliaps the greatest advance in fruit-growing of the last half- 
dozen years, is in the culture of foreign grapes. So long as it was 
believed that our climate, which is warm enough to give us the 
finest melons in abundance, is also sufficient to produce tlie foreign 
grape in perfection, endless experiments were tried in the open gar- 
den. But as all these experiments were unsatisfactory or fruitless, 
not only at the North but at the South — it has finally come to be 
admitted that the difficulty lies in the variableness, rather than the 
want of heat, in the United States. This once conceded, our horti- 
culturists have turned their attention to vineries for raising this de- 
licious fruit under glass — and at the present time, so much have 
both private and market vineries increased, the finest Hamburgh, 
Chasselas, and Muscat gi-apes, may be had in abundance at mode- 
rate prices, in the markets of Boston, New-York, and Philadelphia. 
For a September crop of the finest foreign grapes, the heat of the 
sun accumulated in one of the so-called cold vineries (i. e. a vinery 
without artificial heat, and the regular temperature insured by the 
vinery itself) is amply sufficient. A cold vinery is constructed at 
so moderate a cost, that it is now fast becoming the appendage of 
every good garden, and some of our wealthiest amateurs, taking ad- 
vantage of our bright and sunny climate, have grapes on their tables 
from April to Christmas — the earlier crops forced — the late ones 
slightly retarded in cold vineries. From all that we saw of the best 
private gardens in England, last summer, we are confident that we 
raise foreign grapes under glass in the United States, of higher flavor, 
and at far less trouble, than they are usually produced in England. 
Indeed, we have seen excellent Black Hamburghs grown in a large 
pit made by covering the vines trained on a high board fence, with 
the common sash of a large hot-bed. 

On the Ohio, tlie native grapes — especially the Catawba — have 
risen to a kind of national importance. The numerous vineries 
which border that river, particularly about Cincinnati, have begun 
to yield abundant vintages of pure light wine, which takes rank with 
foreign Avine of established reputation, and commands a high price 
in the market. Now tliat the Ohio is certain to ffive us Hock and 



A FEW WORDS ON FRUIT CULTURE. 439 

Claret, what we hear of the grapes and wine of Texas and New 
Mexico, leads us to believe that the future vineyards of New World 
Sherry and Madeira may spring up in that quarter of our widely 
extended country. 

New Jersey, so long famous for her prolific peach orchards, be- 
gins to show the effects of a careless system of culture. Every year, 
the natural elements of the soil needful to the production of the finest 
peaches, are becoming scarcer and scarcer, and nothing but deeper 
cultivation, and a closer attention to the inorganic necessities of 
vegetable growth, will enable the orchardists of that State long to 
hold their ground in the production of good fruit. At the present 
moment, the peaches of Cincinnati and Rochester are far superior, 
both in beauty and flavor, to those of the New-York market — though 
in quantity the latter beats the world. The consequence is, that we 
shall soon find the peaches of Lake Ontario outselling those of Long 
Island and New Jersey in the same market, unless the orchardists 
of the latter State abandon Malagatunes and the yellows, and shal- 
low ploughing. 

The fi-uit that most completely baffles general cultivation in the 
United States, is the plum. It is a tree that grows and blossoms 
well enough in all parts of the country, but almost every where it 
has for its companion the curculio, the most destructive and the 
least vulnerable of all enemies to fruit. In certain parts of the Hud- 
son, of central New- York, and at the West, where the soil is a stiff, 
fat clay, the curculio finds such poor quarters in the soil, and the 
tree thrives so well, that the fruit is most delicious. But in light, 
sandy soils, its culture is only an aggravation to the gardener. In 
such sites, here and there only a tree escapes, which stands in some 
pavement or some walk for ever hard by the pressure of constant 
passing. No method has proved effectual* but placing the trees in 
the midst of the pig and poultry yard ; and notwithstanding the 
numerous remedies that have been proposed in our pages since the 
commencement of this work, this proves the only one that has not 
failed more frequently than it has succeeded. 

The multiplication of insects seems more rapid, if possible, than 
that of gardens and orchards in this country. Every where the cul- 
ture of fruit appears, at first sight, the easiest possible matter, and 



440 FRUIT. 

really would be, were it not for some insect pest that stands ready 
to devour and destroy. In countries where the labor of women and 
children is applied, at the rate of a few cents a day, to the extermi- 
nation of insects, it is comparatively easy to keep the latter under 
control. But nobody can afford to catch the curculios and other 
beetles at the price of a dollar a day for labor. The entomologists 
ought, therefore, to explain to us some natural laws which have been 
violated to bring upon us such an insect scourge ; or at least point 
out to us some cheap way of calling in nature to our aid, in getting 
rid of the vagrants. For our own part, we fully believe that it is to 
the gradual decrease of small birds — partly from the destruction of 
our forests, but mainly from the absence of laws against that vaga- 
bond race of unfledged sj)ortsmen who shoot spaiTOws when they 
ought to be planting corn — that this inordinate increase of insects is 
to be attributed. Nature intended the small birds to be^maintained 
by the destruction of insects, and if the former are wantonly de- 
stroyed, our crops, both of the field and gardens, must pay the 
penalty. If the boys must indulge their spirit of liberty by shooting 
something innocent, it would be better for us husbandmen and gar- 
deners to subscribe and get some French masters of the arts of do- 
mestic sports, to teach them how to bring their light artillery to 
bear upon bull-frogs. It would be a gain to the whole agricultural 
community, of more national importance than the preservation of 
the larger birds by the game laws. 

We may be expected to say a word or two here respecting the 
result of the last five years on pomology in the United States. The 
facts are so well known that it seems hardly necessary. There has 
never been a period on either side of the Atlantic, when so much 
attention has been paid to fruit and fruit culture. The rapid in- 
crease of nurseries, the eiiormous sales of fruit-trees, the publication 
and dissemination of work after work upon fruits and fruit culture, 
abundantly prove this assertion. The Pomological Congress which 
held its third session last year in Cincinnati, and which meets again 
this autumn in Philadelphia, has done much, and will do more to- 
wards generalizing our pomological knowledge for the country gen- 
erally. During the last ten years, almost every fine fruit known in 
Europe has been introduced, and most of them have been proved in 



A FEW WORDS ON FRUIT CULTURE. 441 

this country. The result, on the whole, has been below the expec- 
tation; a few very fine sorts admirably adapted to the country; a 
great number of inditferent quality ; many absolutely worthless. 
This, naturally, makes pomologists and fruit-growers less anxious 
about the novelties of the nurseries abroad, and more desirous of 
originating first-rate varieties at home. The best lessons learned 
from the discussions in the Pomological Congress — where the expe- 
rience of the most practical fruit-growers of the country is brought 
out — is, that for every State, or every distinct district of country, 
there must be found or produced its improved indigenous varieties 
of fruit — varieties born on the soil, inured to the climate, and there- 
fore best adapted to that given locality. So that after gathering a 
few kernels of wheat out of bushels of chaff, American horticultu- 
rists feel, at the present moment, as if the best promise of future ex- 
cellence, either in fruits or practical skill, lay in applying all our 
knowledge and power to the study of our own soil and climate, and 
in helping nature to perform the problem of successful cultivation, 
by hints drawn from the facts immediately around us. 



n. 

THE FRUITS IN CONVENTION. 

February, 1850. 

WHAT an extraordinary age is this for conventions ! Now-a- 
days, if people only imagine something is the matter, they 
directly hold a convention, and resolve that the world shall be 
amended. We should not be surprised to hear next, of a conven- 
tion of crows, resolving that the wicked practice of setting scare- 
crows in cornfields be henceforth abolished. 

Sitting in our easy chair a few evenings since, we were quite sur- 
prised to see the door of our library open, and a small boy — dressed 
in dark green, who had something of the air of a locust or a grass- 
hopper — walk in with a note. 

It was an invitation to attend a mass meeting of all the fruits of 
America, ass embled to discuss the propriety of changing their names. 
Horrified at the revolutionary spirit, we seized our hat directly, and 
bade the messenger lead the way. 

He lost no time in conducting us at once to a large building, 
■where we entered a lofty hall, whose dome, ribbed hke a melon, was 
lighted by a gigantic chandelier, in the form of a Christmas tree, 
the lights of which gleamed through golden and emerald drops of 
all manner of crystal fruits. 

In the hall itself were assembled all our familiar acquaintances, 
and many that were scarcely known to us by sight. We mean our 
acquaintances — the fruits. On the right of the speaker sat the 
Pears ; rather a tall, aristocratic set of gentlemen and ladies, — many 
.of them foreigners, and most of them of French origin. One could 



THE FRUITS IN CONVENTION. 443 

see by the gossiping and low conversation going on in knots 
among them, that they were full of little schemes of finesse. On 
the left, sat the numerous Apple family, with honest, ruddy faces ; 
and whether Yankee, English, or German, evidently all of the Teu- 
tonic race. They had a resolute, determined air, as if they had busi- 
■ ness of importance on hand. Directly behind the Pears sat the 
Peaches, mostly ladies, with such soft complexions and finely turned 
figures as it did one's eyes good to contemplate ; or youths, with the 
soft down of early manhood on their chins. Apricots and Necta- 
rines were mingled among them, full of sweet smiles and a honeyed 
expression about their mouths. The Plums were there, too, dressed 
in purple and gold, — many of them in velvet coats, with a fine downy 
bloom upon them ; and near them were the Cherries, an arrant, co- 
quettish set of lasses and lads, — the light in their eyes as bright as 
rubies. The Strawberries sat on low stools in the aisles, overhung 
and backed by the Grapes, — tall fellows, twisting their moustaches 
(tendrils), and leaning about idly, as if they took but little interest 
in the pi'oceedings. The only sour faces in the crowd were those of 
a knot of Morello Cherries and Dutch Currants, who took every 
occasion to hiss any speaker not in favor. 

We said this was a convention of fruits ; but we ought also to 
add that the fruits looked extremely like human beings. On re- 
marking this to our guide, he quietly said, — " Of co\rrse, you know 
you see them now in their spiritual forms. If you half close your eyes, 
you will find you recognize them all in their everyday, familiar 
shapes." And so indeed we did, and were shaking hands warmly 
with our neighbors and friends — the Beurres, and Pippins, and Pear- 
mains, when we were inteiTupted by the speaker, calling the meet- 
ing to order. 

The Speaker (on gi\'ing him the blink), we found to be a fine 
large specimen of the Boston Russet, with a dignified expression, and 
a certain bland air of one accustomed to preside. He returned 
thanks very handsomely to the convention for the honor of the 
chair ; assuring them that having been bred in the land of steady 
habits, he would do all in his power to maintain order and expedite 
the business of the convention. We noticed, as he sat down, that 
there were vice-presidents from every ^tate, — many of them old and 



444 FRUIT. 

well-known fruits ; and that the Le Clerc Pear and an Honest John 
Peach were the secretaries ; and a pair of very asti'ingent looking 
fellows — one a Crab Apple, and the other a Choke Pear — were ser- 
geants-at-arms, or door-keepers. Their duties seemed to be; chiefly 
that of preventing some brambles from clambering up the walls and 
looking in the windows, and a knot of saucy looking blackamoors," 
whom we discovered to be only Black Currants, from (jrowding up 
the lobbies ; the latter in particulai-, being in bad odor with many 
of the members. 

There was a little stir on the left, and a solid, substantial, well- 
to-do personage rose, who we recognized immediately as tlie New- 
town Pippin. He had the air of a man about sixty ; but there was 
a look of sound health about him which made you feel sure of his 
hundredth year. 

The Newtown Pippin said it was needless for him to remark that 
this was no common meeting. The members were all aware that 
no ordinary motives had called together this great convention of 
fruits. He was proud and happy to welcome so many natives and 
naturalized citizens, — all bearing evidence of having taken kindly 
to the soil of this great and happy country. Every one present 
knows, the world begins to know, he remarked, that North America 
is the greatest of fruit-growing countries (hear, hear), that the United 
States was fast becoming the favored land of Pomona, who, indeed, 
was always rather republican in her taste, and hated, above all 
things, the fashion in aristocratic countries of tying her up to walls, 
and conlining her imder glass. He preferred the open air, and the 
free breath of orchards. 

But, he said, it was necessary to come to business. This conven- 
tion had met to discuss the propriety and necessity of passing an 
alien law, by which all foreigners, on settling in this country, should 
be obliged to drop their foreign names, or, rather, have them trans- 
lated into plain English. The cultivators of fruit were, take them alto- 
gether, a body of plain, honest countrymen, who, however they might 
relish foreign fruits, did not get on w'ell with foreign names. They 
found them to stick in their throats to such a degree that they could 
not make good bargains over such gibberish. The question to be 
brought before this meeting, therefore, was nothing more nor less than 



THE FRUITS IN CONVENTION. 445 

whether things should be called by names that sounded real, or 
names that had a foreign, fictitious and romantic air; whether an 
honest man might be called in plain English a " good Christian," or 
whether he should forever be doomed to be misrepresented and 
misunderstood as a " Bon Ckretie7i." For his own pait, he said, he 
thought it was time to assert our nationality ; and while he was the 
last man to say or do any thing to prevent foreigners from settling 
among us, he did think that they should have the courtesy to drop 
foreign airs and come down to plain English, or plain Yankee com- 
prehension. He was himself a "native American," and he gloried 
in it. He considered himself, though a plain republican, as good as 
any foreigners, however high-sounding their titles ; and he believed 
that if fruits would be more careful about their intrinsic flavor, and 
study, as he did, how to maintain their credit perfect and unimpaired 
for the longest possible period, it would in the end be found more to 
their advantage than this stickling for foreign titles. His ancestors, 
he said, were born in the State of New- York ; and he was himself 
raised in a great and well-known orchard on the Hudson. (Hear, 
hear.) If any gentleman present wished to know the value of a 
plain American name, he would be glad to show him, in dollars and 
cents, the income of that orchard. He was in gi-eater favor in 
Covent Garden market than any English or continental fruit ; and 
such sums had been realized from the sales of that orchard, that it 
was seriously proposed in the English parliament to impose a duty 
on Newtown Pippins, to pay off the national debt. {^Great applause, 
and a kiss from a string of Currants.) He concluded, by trust- 
ing the chairman would pardon this allusion to his own affairs, which 
he only gave to show that a Pippin, in plain English, was worth 
as much in the market and the world's estimation, as the finest 
French title that was ever lisped in the Faubourg St. Germain. 
He moved that all foreign names of fruits be done into plain Eng- 
lish. 

This speech produced a gi'eat commotion among the Pears on 
the right, who had evidently not expected such a straightforward 
way of treating the nicitter. For a moment all was confusion. That 
little fellow, the Petit Micscat, — always the first on. the carpet, — 
ran hither and thither satherinff little clusters about him. The 



446 FRUIT. 

Sans-peau, or Skinless, was evidently touched to the quick. The 
Pomme glace gave all the Pippins a freezing look ; and the Fon- 
dante d^Automne, a very tender creature, was so overcome that she 
melted into tears at such a monstrous proposition. The Belle de 
Bruxelles muttered that she had seen Newtown Pippins that were 
false-hearted ; and the Poire Episcopal declared that the man who 
could utter such sentiments was a radical, and dangerous to the 
peace of established institutions. 

Just as we were wondering who would rise on the opposition, a 
tall, well proportioned Pear got up, with a pleasant Flemish aspect. 
It was Van Moris' Leon le Clerc. He said he was sorry to see this 
violent feeling manifested against foreign names ; and being a 
foreigner, and having had a pretty long acquaintance with foreign 
Pears abroad, he felt called upon to say something in their defence. 
He thought the remarks of the gentleman who had preceded him, 
both uncourteous to foreigners and unreasonable. He could not un- 
derstand why people should not be allowed to retain their names, 
at least such as had any worth retaining, even if they did become 
rooted to the soil of this country. Especially when those names 
were in the most polite language in the world, — a language which 
every educated person was bound to understand, — a language spoken 
by Duhamel and Van Mons, the greatest of pomologists, — a lan- 
guage more universal than the English, — spoken, in short, in all 
civilized countries, and especially spoken by fine ladies over a dish 
of fine pears at the dessert. i^Great applause) 

Here, a stranger to us, the Bezi des Veterans, rose and said : — 
Scire, I have de honor to just arrive in dis country. I am very much 
char/rinee at dis proposition to take away my name. I have run 
away from de revolutions, what take away my property, and here 
I hope to find la liberie — la paix ; and I only find les voleurs — 
robbers — vat vish to take away my name. Yes, sare ; and Avhat 
they will call me den ? — " wild old mans," or " old sojair ? " Bah ! 
Me no like to be so, Moi, who belong to de grand bataillon — le 
garde Napoleon ! 

Here a pleasant and amiable lady rose, evidently a little embar- 
rassed. It was Louise Bonne de Jersey. She said she lo\'ed Ame- 
rica. True, she had found the climate not to agree with her at first, 



THE FRUITS IN CONVENTION. 447 

and her children seemed to pine away ; but since she had taken 
that hardy creature, the Quince, for a partner, they had done won- 
derfully well. For her own part, she had no objection whatever to 
being called " Good Louise," or even " Dear Louisa," if her Ame- 
rican friends and cousins liked it better. All she asked was to be 
allowed to live in the closest intimacy with the Quince, and not 
to have any cutting remarks made at her roots. She could not 
bear that. 

A very superb and stately lady next rose, giving a shake to her 
broad skirts of yellow satin, and looking about her with the air of 
a duchess. In fact, it was the Duchesse cf Angouleme ; and though 
she was a little high shouldered, and her features somewhat irregular, 
she had still a very noble air. She remarked, in a simple and dig- 
nified voice, that she had been many years in this country, and had 
become veiy partial to the people and institutions. Naturally, she 
had strong attachments to old names and associations, especially 
where, as in her case, they were names that were names. But, she 
added, it was impossible to live in America without mixing with 
the people, if one's very name could not be understood. It was 
very distressing to her feelings to find, as she did, that French was 
not taught in the common schools ; and she hoped if an agricul- 
tural college was established, the scholars would be taught that lan- 
guage which was synonymous with every thing elegant and refined. 
She trusted, in conclusion, that though names should be anglicized, 
the dignity would be preserved. A duchess, in name at least, she 
must always be ; but if republicans preferred to call her simply the 
Duchess of Angoulerae, she saw nothing amiss in it. Especially, — 
she remarked, with a slight toss of the head, — especially, since she 
had heard an ignorant man, at the country-seat where she resided 
call her repeatedly " Duchy-Dan goes-lame ;" and another, who 
visits him, speak of her, as " Dutch Dangle-um," forgetting that she 
abhorred Holland. 

She was followed by the Med Streak Apple, from New Jersey, 
a very blunt, sturdy fellow, who spoke his mind plainly. He said 
he liked the good sense of the lady who had just spoken ; she was 
a woman he should have no objection to call a Duchess himself. 
About this matter he had but few words to say. Some folks were 



448 FRUIT. 

all talk and no cider ; that, tliank God ! was not his fashion. What 
he had to say he said ; and that was, that he was sick of this tom- 
foolery about foreign names. A name either meant something or it 
did not. Any body who looked at him could see that he was a 
Red-Streak, and that was all that his father expected when he named 
him. Any body could believe that the last speaker was a Duchess. 
But what, he should like to know, did the man mean who named a 
Peach " Sanguinole a chair adherent .-'" He should hke to meet 
that chap. It would be a regular raw-head and bloody-bones piece 
of business for him. And '■'• Fondante du Bois f he supposed that 
was the fond aunt of some b'hoys, — it might be the " old boy," for 
all he knew. And " Beurre Gris d''Hiver nouveauy Could any 
thing be more ridiculous ! He should like to know how those 
clever people, the pomologists, would translate that? They told 
him, " new gray winter butter," (laughter ;) and what sort of winter 
butter, pray, was that ? " Heine de Pays bas ;" what this meant, 
he did not exactly know, — something, he supposed, about " rainy 
weather pays bad," which would not go down, he could tell the 
gentleman, in our dry climate. There was no end to this stuff, he 
said. He seconded the Pippin. Clear it all away ; boil it down to 
a little pure, plain English essence, if there was any substance in it ; 
if not, throw the lingo to the dogs. He hoped the Pears would ex- 
cuse him. He meant no offence to them personally. But he didn't 
like their names, and he told them so to their faces. 

The Minister Apple here observed that he had some moral scru- 
ples about changing the names of all the fruits. It might have 
a bad effect on the hearts and minds of the community. He 
begged leave to present to the speaker's consideration such names, 
for example, as the " Ah mon Dieu,^'' and the " Cuisse Madame " 
Pears! There were many who grew those Pears, and, like our first 
parents, did not know the real nature of the fruits in the garden. 
Happy ignorance ! Translate them, and they would, he feared, be- 
come fruits of the tree of knowledge. 

A tall Mazza.rd Cherry hereupon i-emarked (wiping his specta- 
cles), that a very easy way of avoiding the danger which his worthy 
friend, who had just sat down, had pointed out, would be to reject 
both the Pears and the names, when they wei-e no better than the 



THE FRUITS IN CONVENTION. 449 

last. He was a warm friend to progress in horticulture, and lie was 
fully of the opinion of the Jersey Red-Streak, that things should 
not come among us, plain republicans, in disguise. How, indeed, 
did we know that these Peai's of France were not sent out here 
under these queer names for the very purpose of corrupting our 
morals ; or, at least, imposing on us in some way ? He had been 
settled in a garden for some years, among a pleasant society of trees, 
when last spring the owner introduced a new Pear from abroad, 
under the fine name of " Cliat bride." For some time the thing 
})ut on airs, and talked about its estate and chateau having been 
destroj-ed by incendiaries ; and it showed a petition for charity. 
What was his amazement, one day, when the daughter of the pro- 
prietor came in the garden, to see the contempt with which she 
turned away from this Pear, and exclaimed, " what could have in- 
duced pa to have brought this 'singed cat' here?" Cliat bride, 
indeed ! He bent over the creature and switched her finely the 
first stormy day. He was for translating all good fruits and damn- 
ing all bad ones. (At hearing this, certain second-rate Strawber- 
ries commenced running^ 

The convention grew very excited as the Mazzard sat down. 
The Muscat JSToir Grape looked black in the face ; the Crown Bob 
Gooseberry threw up his hat ; and the Blood Peach, who had been 
flirting with a very worthless fellow — the French soft-shelled Al- 
mond — turned quite crimson all over. Cries of " order, order," 
were heard from all sides ; and it was only restored when a little, 
plump, Dolly-Varden-looking young girl, who was a great favorite 
in good society, sj)rang upon a chair in order to be seen and 
heard. 

This was the Lady Apple. Her eyes sparkled, and set off her 
bi'illiant complexion, which was quite dazzlingly feir. It was easy 
to see that she was a sort of spoiled child among the fruits. 

Mr. Speaker, she said in a very sweet voice, you will indulge 
me, I am sure, with a very little speech — my maiden speech. 1 
should not have ventured here, but I positively thought it was to 
have been a private party, and not one of these odious mass meet- 
ings. I am accustomed to the society of well-bred people, and 
know something of the polite language of both hemispheres. In- 
29 



450 FRUIT. 

deed, my ancestors still live in Fi-ance, though I am myself a real 
American. What I have to tell is only a little of my own experience ; 
which is, that one may, if one has good looks, and is a person of 
taste, have her name changed without suft'ering the least loss of 
character or reputation. Indeed, I am convinced it may often add 
to her circle of admirers, hy making her better understood and ap- 
preciated. I am almost ashamed, ladies and gentlemen, to refer to 
my own life, illustrative of this remark. [Cheers), [Here she 
blushed, and looked around her very sweetly.] At home, there in 
la belle France, I belong to the old and very respectable family of 
the Api's. There was not much in that ; but mostly shut up in an 
old dingy chateau, — no society — no evening parties — no excite- 
ment. I assure you it was very dull. In this country, where I am 
known every where as the " Lady Apple," I am invited every where 
among the most fashionable people. Yes, Mr. Speaker, this coun- 
try has charmingly been called the paradise of ladies ; and I would 
advise all deserving and modest girls in jeune France, to come over 
to younger America, and change their names as quickly as they can. 
[Hear, hear, especially from the Jonathan Apple.) If they will 
take 7ny advice, they will put off all foolish pride and fine names 
that mean nothing, and try to speak plain English, and dress 
in the latest republican style ; (especially, — she added, aside, turn- 
ing to the foreign Pears, — especially as the fashions always come 
from Paris.) 

This lively little sally evidently made a favorable impression. 
The Bartlett Pear said he was nobody in France as the Poire Guil- 
lame, while here, where the climate agreed so much better with his 
constitution, he was a favorite with high and low. The Duchcsse 
d' Orleans thought it best for ladies like herself, who did not expect 
to associate with any but the educated class, to retain their foreign 
names. The Jargonell Pear said he had heard a great deal of talk, 
which to him was a mere babel of tongues. His name was the 
same on both sides of the water. The Flemish Beauty said, on the 
other hand, that she was a great deal more loved in this country 
now, than when she first came here as the Belle de Flandres. The 
Bellefleur Apple observed, she had tried to maintain her foreign 
et}anology in this country without success, and meant to be hence- 



THE FRUITS IN CONVENTION. 451 

forth plain Bellflower : and the Surprise Apple turned red, as he 
attempted to say something (the Morello trying to hiss him down) ; 
but he was only able to stammer out his astonishment that any one 
could doubt the policy of so wise a movement. 

There was here a tumult among some of the foreign Grapes, 
jiccustomed to live in glass-houses, who had been caught by the 
Crab Apples stoning the windows, and sticking their spurs (they 
were short-pruned vines) into some patient-looking old Horse Apples 
from the western States, A free-soiler, who was known as the 
Northern Spy, was about to sow the seeds of the apple of discord 
in the convention, by bringing forward an amendment, that no 
foreign fruits, and especially none which were not " on their own 
bottoms," should be allowed to settle in any of the new States or 
territories, when that old favorite, the Vergal Pear, made a sooth- 
ing speech, in his usual melting and buttery manner, which brought 
all the meeting to a feeling of unanimity again ; when they re- 
solved to postpone further action, but to prepare a memorial on the 
subject, to be laid before the Congress of Fruit-growers, at its meet- 
ing next fall in Cincinnati. 



III. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANURING ORCHAEDS. 

January, 1848. 

THE culture of the soil may be viewed in two very different as- 
pects. In one, it is a mean and ignorant employment. It is a 
moral servitude, which man is condemned to pay to fields pei-petu- 
aUy doomed to bear thorns and thistles. It is an unmeaning routine 
of planting and sowing, to earn bread enougli to satisfy the hunger 
and cover the natedness of the race. And it is performed in this 
light, by the servants of the soil, in a routine as simple, and with a 
spirit scarcely more intelligent than that of the beasts which draw 
the plough that tears open the bosom of a hard and ungenial 
earth I 

What is the other aspect in which agriculture may be viewed ? 
Very different indeed. It is an employment at once the most natural, 
noble, and independent that can engage the energies of man. It 
brings the whole earth into subjection. It transforms unproductive 
tracts into fruitful fields and gardens. It raises man out of the un- 
certain and wild life of the fisher and hunter, into that where all the 
best institutions of society have their birth. It is the mother of all 
the arts, all the commerce, and all the industrial employments that 
maintain the civilization of the world. It is full of the most pro- 
found physical wonders, and involves an insight into the whole his- 
tory of the planet, and the hidden laws that govern that most com- 
mon and palpable, and yet most wonderful and incomprehensible 
substance — matter ! There has never yet lived one who has been 
philosopher enough to penetrate farther than the outer vestibules of 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANURING ORCHARDS. 453 

its great temples of truth ; and there are mysteries enough yet un- 
explained in that every-day miracle, the growth of an acorn, to ex- 
cite for ages the attention and admiration of the most profound 
worshipper of God's works. 

Fortunately for us and for our age, too much light has already 
dawned upon us to allow intelligent men ever to relapse into any 
such degrading view of the aim and rights of the cultivator as that 
first presented. We have too generally ascertained the value of 
science, imperfect as it still is, appHed to farming and gardening, to 
be contented any more to go back to that condition of things when 
a crooked tree was used for a plough, and nuts and wild berries 
were suflScient to satisfy the rude appetite of man. The natural 
sciences have lately opened new revelations to us of the hidden prob- 
lems of growth, nutrition, and decay, in the vegetable and animal 
kingdoms. Secrets have been laid bare that give us a new key to 
power, in our attempts to gain the masteiy over matter, and we are 
continually on the alert to verify and put in practice our newly ac- 
quired knowledge, or to add in every possible way to the old stock. 
Men are no longer contented to reap short crops from worn-out soil. 
They look for scientific means of renovating it. They would make 
the earth do its utmost. Agriculture is thus losing its old character 
of being merely physical di'udgery, and is rapidly becoming a sci- 
ence, full of profound interest, as well as a grand practical art, which, 
Atlas-like, bears the burden of the world on its back. 

It is not to be denied that chemistry is the great railroad which 
has lately been opened, graded, and partially set in operation, to 
facilitate progress through that wide and comparatively unexplored 
territory — scientific cultivation : chemistry, which has scrutinized 
and analyzed till she has made many things, formerly doubtful and 
hidden, as clear as noonday. And it is by watching her move- 
ments closely, by testing her theories by practice, by seizing every 
valuable suggestion, and working out her problems patiently and 
fairly, that the cultivator is mainly to hope for progress in the future. 

No one who applies his reasoning powers to the subject will fail 
to see, also, how many interesting points are yet in obscurity ; how 
many important facts are only just beginning to dawn upon the pa- 
tient investigator ; how much is yet to be learned only by repeated 



464 FRUIT. 

experiments ; and how many fail who expect to get immediate ra- 
phes from nature, to questions whose satisfactory solution must de- 
pend upon a variety of preliminary knowledge, only to be gathered 
slowly and patiently, by those who are unceasing in their devotion 
to her teachings. 

There are no means of calculating how much chemistry has 
done for agriculture within the last ten years. We say this, not in 
the sanguine spirit of one who reads a volume on agricultural chem- 
istry for the first time, and imagines that by the application of a few 
salts he can directly change barren fields into fertile bottoms, and 
raise one hundred bushels of corn where twenty grew before. But 
we say it after no little observation of the results of experimental 
farming — full of failures and errors, with only occasional examples 
of brilliant success — as it is. 

There are numbers of readers who, seeing the partial operations 
of nature laid bare, imagine that the w'hole secret of assimilation is 
discovered, and by taking too short a route to the end in view, they 
destroy all. They may be likened to those intellectual sluggards 
who are captivated by certain easy roads to learning, the gates of 
which are kept by those who teach every branch of human wisdom 
in six lessons ! This gallop into the futurity of laborious effort, gen- 
erally produces a giddiness that is almost equivalent to the oblitera- 
tion of all one's power of discernment. And though one may, now^, 
by the aid of magnetism, " put a girdle round the earth " in less than 
" forty minutes," there are still conditions of nature that imperiously 
demand time and space. 

Granting, therefore, that there are hundreds who have failed in 
their experiments with agricultural chemistry, still we contend that 
there are a few of the more skilful and thorough experimenters who 
have been eminently successful ; and tvhose success tvill gradually 
form the basis of a new and improved system of agriculture. 

More than this, the attention which has been drawn to the value 
of careful and intelligent culture, is producing indirectly the most 
valuable results. Twenty years ago not one person in ten thousand, 
cultivating the land, among us, thought of any other means of en- 
riching it than that of supplying it with barn-yard manure. At 
the present moment tliei-e is not an intelligent farmer in the coun- 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANURING ORCHARDS. 455 

try who is not conversant with the economy and vahie of muck, 
ashes, Hiue, marl, bones, and a number of less important fertihzers. 
In all the older and less fertile parts of the country, where manure 
is no longer cheap, thje use of these fertilizers has enabled agricultu- 
rists of limited means to keep their land in high condition, and add 
thirty per cent, to their crops. And any one who will take the 
trouble to examine into the matter in our principal cities, will find 
that fifty articles, in the aggregate of enormous value for manure to 
the farmer and gardener, which were until lately entirely thrown 
away, are now preserved, are articles of commerce, and are all turned 
to the utmost account as food for the crops. 

We have been led into this train of thought by observing that 
after the great staples of the agriculturist — bread-stuffs and the 
grasses — have had that first attention at the hands of the chemist 
which they so eminently deserve, some investigation is now going 
on for the benefit of the horticulturist and the orchardist, of which 
it is our duty to keep our readers informed. We allude to the 
analyses which have been made of the composition of the inorganic 
parts of vegetables, and more especially of some of the fruit-trees 
whose culture is becoming an object of so much importance to this 
country. 

We think no one at all familiar with modern chemistry or sci- 
entific agriculture, can for a moment deny the value of specific ma- 
nures. It is the great platform upon which the scientific culture of 
the present day stands, and which raises it so high above the old 
empirical routine of the last century. But in order to be able to 
make practical application, with any tolerable chance of success, of 
the doctrine of special manures, w'e must have before us careful 
analyses of the composition of the plants we propose to cultivate. 
Science has proved to us that there are substances which are of 
universal value as food for plants ; but it is now no less certain that, 
as the composition of different plants, and even different species of 
plants, differs very widely, so must certain substances, essential to 
the growth of the plant, be present in the soil, or that growth is 
feeble and imperfect. 

A little observation will satisfy any careful inquirer, that but 
little is yet practically known of the proper mi^de of manuringi^ 



456 FRUIT. 

orchards, and rendering tlicm uniformly productive. To say tliat 
in almost every neigliborhuod, orchards will be found which bear 
large crops of fine fruit, while others, not half a mile off, pi'oduce 
only small crops ; that in one part of the country a given kind of 
fruit is always large and fair, and in another it is always spotted and 
defective ; that barn-yard manure seems to produce but little effect 
in remedying these evils ; that orchards often nearly cease bearing 
wliile yet the trees are in full maturity, and by no means in a worn- 
out or dying condition : to say all this, is only to repeat what every 
experienced cultivator of orchards is familiar with, but for which few 
or no practical cultivators have the explanation ready. 

We have seen a heavy application of common manure made to 
apple-trees, which were in this inexplicable condition of bearing no 
sound fruit, without producing any good effects. The trees grew 
more luxuriantly, but the fruit was still knotty and inferior. In this 
state of things, the baffled practical man very properly attributes it 
to some inherent defect in the soil, and looks to the chemist for aid. 

We are glad to be able to say, this aid is forthcoming. Many 
valuable analyses of the ashes of trees and plants, Jiave been made 
lately at Giessen, and may be found in the appendix to the last edi-. 
tion of Liebig's Agricultural Chemistry.* And still more recently, 
Dr. Emmons, of Albany, well known by his labors in the cause of 
scientific agriculture,! has devoted considerable time and attention 
to ascertaining the elements which enter into the comj^osition of the 
inorganic 2>arts of trees. 

Tlie icsult of this investigation we consider of the highest im- 
portance to the fruit cultivator and the orchardist. In fact, though 
still imperfect, it clears up many difficult points, and gives us some 
basis for a more philosophical system of manuring orchards than has 
yet prevailed. 

The importance of the gaseous and more soluble manures — am- 
monia, nitrogen, etc., to the whole vegetable kingdom, has long been 
pretty thoroughly appreciated. The old-fashioned, practical man, 
dating from Noah's time, who stands by his well-rotted barn-yard 

* Published by "Wiley <fe Putnam, New- York. 

\ See his quarto vol. on the Agriculture of New- York, lately published, 
tlrnd forming part of the State survey. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANURING ORCHARDS. 45*7 

compost, and the new-school disciple, who uses guano and liquid 
manures, are both ready witnesses to prove the universal and vital 
importance of these animal fertilizei-s, — manures that accelerate the 
growth, and give volume and bulk to every part of a tree <ii plant. 

But the value and importance of the heavier and more insoluble 
earthy elements have often been disputed, and, though ably demon- 
strated of late, there are still comparatively few who understand 
their application, or who have any clear and definite ideas of their 
value in the economy of vegetable structure. 

To get at the exact quantities of these ingredients, which enter 
into the comj^osition of plants, it is necessary to analyze their ashes. 

It is not our pui'pose, at the present moment, to go beyond the 
limits of the orchard. We shall therefore confine ourselves to the 
most important elements which make up the wood and bark of the 
apple, the pea?; and the grape-vine. 

According to Dr. Emmons's analysis, in 100 parts of the ashes 
of the sap-ivood of the apple-tree, there are three elements that 
gTcatly preponderate, as follows : 16 parts potash, 17 parts phosphate 
of lime, and 18 parts lime. In the bark of this tree, there are 
4 parts potash and 5 1 parts lime. 

100 parts of the ashes of the sap-wood of the pear-irea, show 
22 parts j;otes7t, 27 '^&xis phosphate of lime, and 12 parts lime ; the 
bark giving 6 parts potash, 6 parts phosjihate, and 30 parts lime. 

The analysis of the common wild grape-vine, shows 20 parts pot- 
ash, 15 T^axts phosphate of lime, and 17 parts lime, to every 100 parts ; 
the bark giving 1 part potash, 5 parts phosphate of lime, and 39 
parts lime. 

Now, no intelligent cultivator can examine these results (which 
we have given thus in the rough * to simplify the matter) without 

* The following ai'e Dr. Emmons's exact analyses : 



Potash, 

Soda, 

fhlorine, 

Sulphuric acid, 

Phosphate of lime. 



ASH OF THE PEAR. 


Sap-wood. 


Bark. 


. 


. 22-25 


6-20 


• 


1-84 




, , 


. 0-31 


1-70 


• . • 


0-50 


1-80 


, 


. 27-22 


6-50 



458 



being conscious at a glance, that this large necessity existing in 
these fruit-trees for potash, phosphate of lime, and lime, is not at all 



riiospliate of peroxide of iron, 

Carbonic acid, 

Lime, 

Magnesia, 

Silex, 

Coal, .... 

Organic matter, . 



ASn OF THE APPLE. 



Potash, 

Soda, 

Chloride of sodium, 

Sulphate of lime, . 

Phosphate of peroxide of iron. 

Phosphate of lime. 

Phosphate of magnesia. 

Carbonic acid, 

Lime, .... 

Magnesia, . 

Silica, . . . • . 

Soluble silica. 

Organic matter, 



COMMON WILD GRAPE-VINE, 

Potash, 

Soda, .... 

Chlorine, . 

Sulphuric acid. 

Phosphate of lime. 

Phosphate of peroxide of iron. 

Carbonic acid, 

Lime, .... 

Magnesia, . 

Silex, .... 

Soluble silica. 

Coal and organic matter, 



Sap-wood. 


Bark. 


0-31 




27-69 


37-29 


12-64 


30-36 


3-00 


9-40 


0-30 


0-40 


0-17 


0-65 


4-02 


4-20 


100-25 


98-30 


Sap-wood. 


Bark. 


16-19 


4-930 


3-11 


3-285 


0-42 


0-540 


0-05 


0-637 


0-80 


0-375 


17-50 


2-425 


0-20 




29-10 


44-830 


18-63 


51-578 


8-40 


0-150 


0-85 


0-200 


0-80 


0-400 


4-60 


2-100 


100-65 


109-450 


Wood. 


Bark. 


20-84 


1-77 


2-06 


0-27 


0-02 


0-40 


0-23 


trace. 


15-40 


5-04 


1-20 


5-04 


34-83 


32-22 


17-33 


39-32 


4-40 


0-80 


2-80 


14-00 


0-00 


0-30 


2-20 


1-70 



100-21 



100-86 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANURING ORCHARDS. 459 

provided for by tlie common system of manuring orchards. Hence, 
in certain soils, where a part or all of these elements naturally exist, 
we see both the finest fruit and extraordinary productiveness in the 
orchards. In other soils, well suited perhaps for many other crops, 
orchards languish and are found unprofitable. 

More than this, Dr. Emmons has pointed out what is perhaps 
known to few of our readers, that these inorganic substances form, 
as it were, the skeleton or bones of all vegetables as they do more 
tangibly in animals. The bones of animals are lime — in the form 
of phosphate and carbonate — and the frailer net-work skeleton of 
trunk, leaves and fibres in plants, is formed of precisely the same 
substance. The bark, the veins and nerves of the leaves, the skin 
of fruit, are all formed upon a framework of this organized salt of 
lime, which, in the growth of the plant, is taken up from the soil, 
and circulates freely to the outer extremities of the tree or plant in 
all directions. 

As these elements, which we have named as forming so large a 
part of the ashes of plants, are found in animal manures, the latter 
are quite sufficient in soils where they are not naturally deficient. 
But, on the other hand, where the soil is wanting in lime, potash 
and phosphate of lime, common manures will not and do not an- 
swer the purpose. Experience has abundantly proved the latter po- 
sition ; and science has at length pointed out the cause of the 
failure. 

The remedy is simple enough. Lime, potash and bones (which 
latter abound in the phosphate) are cheap materials, easily obtained 
in any part of the country. K they are not at hand, common 
^uood ashes, which contains all of them, is an easy substitute, and 
one which may be used in much larger quantities than it is com- 
monly applied, wnth the most decided benefit to all fruit-trees. 

The more scientific cultivator of fruit will not fail, however, to 
observe that there is a very marked diflference in the proportion of 
these inorganic matters in the ashes of the trees under our notice. 
Thus, potash and phosphate of lime enter much more largely into 
the composition of the pear than they do in that of the apple tree ; 
while lime is much more abundant in the apple than in the pear ; 
the ashes of the bark of the apple-tree being more than half lime. 



460 FRUIT. 

Potash and lime are also found to be the predominant elements of 
the inorganic structure of the grape-vine. 

Hence potash and bone dust will be the principal substances to 
nourish the structure of the pear-tree ; lime, the principal substance 
for the apple ; and potash for the grape-\dne ; though each of the 
others are also highly essential. 

Since these salts of lime penetrate to the remotest extremities of 
the tree ; since, indeed, they are the foundation upon which a 
healthy structure of all the other parts must rest, it appears to us a 
rational deduction that upon their presence, in sufficient quantity, 
must depend largely the general healthy condition of the leaves and 
fruit. Hence, it is not unlikely that certain diseases of fruit, known 
as the bitter rot in apples, the mildew in grapes, and " cracking " in 
pears, known and confined to certain districts of the country, 
may arise from a deficiency of these inorganic elements in the soil 
of those districts, (not overlooking sulphate of h'on, so marked in 
its eftect on the health of foliage.) Careful experiment will deter- 
mine this ; and if such should prove to be the case, one of the 
greatest obstacles to universal orchard culture will be easily re- 
moved.* 

What we have here endeavored to convey of the importance 
of certain specific manures for fruit-trees, is by no means all theory. 
We could already give numerous practical illustrations to fuitify it. 
Two will perhaps suffice for the present. 

The greatest orchard in America, most undeniably, is that at 
Pelliam farm, on the Hudson. How many barrels of apples are raised 

* It will be remembered that, in our work on Fruits, we opposed the 
theory that all the old pears, liable to crack along the sea-coast, and in some 
other sections of the country, were " worn out." We attributed their ap- 
parent decline to unfavorable soil, injudicious culture and ungenial climate. 
A good deal of observation since those views were published, has convinced 
us that " cracking " in the pear is to be attributed more to an exhaustion, or 
a want of certain necessary elements in the soil, than to any other cause. 
Age has little or nothing to do with it, since Van Mons Leon Le Clerc, one 
of the newest and most vigorous of peai-s, has cracked in some soils for the 
past two years around Boston, though perfectly fixir in other soils there, and 
in the interior. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANURING ORCHARDS. 461 

there annually, we are not informed. ■ But we do know, first, that 
the crop this season, numbered several thousand barrels of New- 
town pippins, of a size, flavor and beauty that we never saw sur- 
passed ; and second, that the Pelham Newtown pippins are as well 
known in Covent Garden market, London, as a Bank of England 
note, and can as readily be turned into cash, with the highest pre- 
mium over any other goods and chattels of the like description. 
Now the great secret of the orchard culture at the Pelham farm, is 
the abundant use of lime. Not that high culture and- plenty of 
other necessary food are wanting ; but that lime is the great basis 
of large crops and smooth, high-flavored fruit. 

Again, the greatest difliculty in fruit culture in America, is to 
grow the foreign grape in the open air. It is not heat nor fertility 
that is wanting, for one section or another of the country can give 
both these in perfection ; but in all sections the fruit mildews, and 
is, on the whole, nearly worthless. An intelligent cultivator, living 
in a warm and genial corner of Canada West, (bordering on the 
western part of Lake Eiie,) had been more than usually successful 
for several seasons in maturing several varieties of foreign grapes 
in the open air. At length they began to fail — even upon the 
young vines, and the mildew made its appearance to render nearly 
the whole crop worthless. Last season, this gentleman, following a 
hint in this journal, gave one of his grape borders a heavy dressing 
of wood ashes. These ashes contained, of course, both the potash 
and the lime so necessary to the grape. He had the satisfaction of 
raising, this season, a crop of fair and excellent grapes, (of which 
we had occular proof,) from this border, while the other vines of the 
same age (and treated, otherwise, in the same way) bore only mil- 
dewed and worthless fruit. We consider both these instances ex- 
cellent illustrations of the value of specific manures. 

We promise to return to this subject again. In the mean time 
it may not be useless to caution some of our readers against pursu- 
ing the wholesale course with specifics which all quack doctors are so 
fond of recommending — i. e., " if a thing is good, you cannot give 
too much." A tree is not all bones, and therefore something must 
be considered besides its anatomical structure — important as that 



462 FRUIT. 

may be. The good, old-fashioned, substantial nourishment must not 
be Anthheld, and a suitable ration from the compost or manure 
heap, as usual, will by no means prevent our orchards being bene- 
fited all the more by the substances of which they have especial 
need, in certain portions of their organization. 



IV. 



THE VINEYARDS OF THE WEST. 

August, 1850. 

TO sit under our own vine and fig-tree, with no one to make us 
afraid, is the most ancient and sacred idea of a hfe of security, 
contentment, and peace. In a national sense, we think we may be- 
gin to lay claim to this species of comfort, so largely prized by our 
ancestors of the patriarchal ages. The southern States have long 
boasted their groves and gardens of fig-trees ; and there is no longer 
any doubt regarding the fact, that the valley of the Ohio, with its 
vine-clad hills, will soon afford a resting-place for millions of cultiva- 
tors, who may sit down beneath the shadow of their own vines, 
with none to make them afraid. 

There has been so much " stuff"," of all descriptions, made in va- 
rious parts of the country under the name of domestic wine — ninety- 
nine hundredths of which is not half so good or so wholesome as 
poor cider — that most persons whose palates are accustomed to the 
fine products of France, Spain, or Madeira, have, after tasting of the 
compounds alluded to, concluded that it was either a poor piece of 
patriotism, or a bad joke, — this trying to swallow American wine. 

On the other hand, various enterprising Frenchmen, observing 
that the climate of a large part of the Union ripened peaches and 
other fruits better than their own country, naturally concluded that 
if they brought over the right kinds of French wine grapes, wine 
must be produced here as good as that made at home. Yet, though 
the experiment has been tried again and again by practical vigne- 
rons, who know the mysteries of cultivation, and wnne merchants 



464 FRUIT. 

wlio had an abundance of capital at their command, tliere is no 
record of one single case of even tolerable success. In no part of 
the United States is the climate adapted to the vineyard culture of 
the foreign grape. 

So much as this was learned, indeed, twenty years ago. But 
was the matter to be given up in this manner ? Could it be possi- 
ble that a vast continent, over which, from one end to the other, the 
wild grape grows in such abundance that the Northmen, who were 
perhaps the first discoverers, gave it the beautiful name of Vinland, 
should never be the land of vineyards? There were at least two 
men who still believed wine-making possible ; and who, twenty 
years or more ago, noticing that the foreign grape proved worthless 
in this countrj^, had faith in the good qualities of the indigenous 
stock. 

We mean, of course. Major Adlum, of the District of Columbia, 
and Nicholas Longworth, Esq., of Ohio. Both these gentlemen, 
after testing the foreign grape, abandoned it, and took up the most 
promising native sorts ; and both at last settled upon the Catawba, 
as the only wine grape, yet known, worthy of cultivation in Ame- 
rica. 

Major Adlum planted a vineyard, and made some wine, Avhich 
we tasted. It was of only tolerable quality ; but it proved that 
good wine can be made of native grapes, the growth of our own 
soil. And though Adlum was not a thorough cultivator, he pub- 
lished a volume on the culture of native grapes, which roused pub- 
lic attention to the subject. He made the assertion before he died, 
that in introducing the Cawtaba grape to public attention, he had 
done more for the benefit of the country than if he had paid 
oft' our then existing national debt. And to this sentiment there 
are many in the western States who are ready now to subscribe 
heartily. 

Mr. Longworth is a man of diflferent stamp. With abundant 
capital, a great deal of patriotism, and a large love of the culture of 
the soil, he adds an especial talent for overcoming obstacles, and 
great pertinacity in carrying his point. What he cannot do him- 
self, he very well knows how to find other persons capable of doing. 
Hence he pursued quite the opposite system from those who under- 



THE VINEYARDS OF THE WEST. 46& 

took the naturalization of the foreign grape. He advertised for na- 
tive grapes of any and every sort, planted all and tested all ; and at 
last, he too has come to the conclusion that the Catawba is the 
wine grape of America. 

" What sort of wine does the Catawba make ?" inquires some 
of our readers, who like nothing but Madeira and Sherry ; " and 
what do you think will be the moral effect of making an abundance 
of cheap wine?" asks some ultra temperance friend and reader. 
We will try to answer both these questions. 

The natural wine which the Cawtaba makes is a genuine hock — 
a wine so much like the ordinary wines of the Rhine, that we could 
put three of the former bottles among a dozen of the latter, and 
it would puzzle the nicest connoisseur to select them by either color 
or flavor. In other WQrds, the Catawba wine (made as it is on the 
Ohio, made without adding either alcohol or sugar) is a pleasant 
light hock, — a little stronger than Rhine wine, but still far lighter 
and purer than nineteen-twentieths of the wines that find their way 
to this country. Its subacid flavor renders it especially grateful, as 
a summer drink, in so hot a climate as ours ; and the wholesome- 
ness of the Rhine wine no one will deny.* Indeed, certain mala- 
dies, troublesome enough in other lands, are never kno'wii in hock 
countries ; and though the taste for hock — like that for tomatoes — 
is an acquired one, it is none the less natural for that ; any more 
than walking is, which, so far as our observation goes, is not one of 
the things we come into the world with, like seeing and hearing. 

As to the temperance view of this matter of wine-making, we 
thinlfia very little familiarity with the state of the case will settle 
this point. Indeed, we are inclined to adopt the views of Dr. Flagg, 
of Cincinnati. " The temperance cause is rapidly preparing public 
sentiment for the introduction of pure American wine. So long as 
public taste remains vitiated by the use of malt and alcoholic drinks, 
it will be impossible to introduce light pleasant wine, except to a 
very limited extent; but just in proportion as strong drinks are 
abandoned, a more wholesome one will be substituted. Instead of 

* Mr. Longworth is now making large quantities of sparkling Catawba 
wine, of excellent quality — [lerhaps more nearly resembling sparkling hock 
than Champagne. 

30 



466 FRUIT. 

paying millions tc foreigners for deleterious drinks, let us produce 
from our own hillsides a wholesome beverage, that will be within 
reach of us all — the poor as well as the rich." 

Very few of the friends of temperance are perhaps aware of two 
facts. First, that pure light wines, such as the Catawba of this coun- 
try, and the Hock and Clarets of Europe, contain so little alcohol 
(only 7 or 8 per cent.) that they are not intoxicating unless drank 
in a most inordinate manner, to which, from the quantity required, 
there is no temptation. On the other hand, they exhilarate the spi- 
rits, and act in a salutary manner on the respiratory organs.- We 
do not mean to say that men could not live and breathe just as well, 
if there were no such thing as wane known ; but that since the time 
of Noah, men will not be contented with merely living and breath- 
ing ; and it is therefore better to provide them with proper and 
wholesome food and drink, than to put improper aliments within 
their reach. 

Second, that it is universally admitted that in all countries where 
light wines so abound that the peasant or working-man may have his 
pint of light wine per day, drunkenness is a thing unknown. On the 
other hand, in all countries which do not produce claret, hock, or 
some other wholesome light wine, ardent spirits are used, and drunk- 
enness is the invariable result. As there is no nation in the world 
where only cold water is drank, (unless opium is used,) and since 
large bodies of men will live in cities, instead of forests and pas- 
tures, there is not likely to be such a nation, let us choose whether 
it is better to have national temperance with light wines, or national 
intemperance with ardent spirits. The question resolves itsdj into 
that narrow compass, at last. 

As we think there are few who will hesitate which horn of the 
dilemma to choose, (especially, as an Irishman would say, " where 
one is no horn at all,") it is, we think, worth while to glance for a 
moment at the state of the vine culture in the valley of the Ohio. 

We have before us a very interesting little pamphlet, full of 
practical details and suggestions on the subject.* It is understood. 

* A Treatise on Grape Culture in Vineyards in the viciniti/ of Cincin- 
nati : By a member of the Cincinnati Ilorticultui'al Society. Sold by I. F. 
De Silver, Main-street, Cincinnati. 



» 



THE VINEYARDS OF THE "WEST. 46Y 

to be from the pen of R. Buchanan, Esq., president of the Cincin- 
nati Horticultural Society. It deals more with facts, actual expe- 
rience, and observation, and less with speculation, supposition, and 
belief, than any thing on this topic that has yet appeared in the 
United States. In other words, a man may take it, and plant a 
nnej'ard, and raise grajDCS with success. He may even make good 
wine ; but no book can wholly teach this latter art, which must 
come by the use of one's eyes and hands in the business itself. 

Among other interesting facts, which we glean from this pam- 
phlet, are the following : The number of acres of vineyard cultm-e, 
within twenty miles of Cincinnati, is seven hundred and forty-tkree. 
Those belong to 264 proprietors and tenants. Mr. Longworth owns 
122 acres, cultivated by 27 tenants. 

The average product per acre in 1848 (a good season) was 300 
gallons to the acre. In 1849 (the worst year ever known) it was 
100 gallons. One vineyard of two acres (that of Mr. Rentz) has 
yielded 1300 gallons in a season. New Catawba mne, at the press ^ 
brings 75 cents a gallon. When ready for sale, it readily commands 
about 11.25 per gallon. 

The best vineyard soil on the Ohio, as in the old world, is one 
abounding with lime. A " diy calcareous loam " is the favorite soil 
near Cincinnati. This is well drained and trenched, two or three 
feet deep, before planting the vines ; trenching being considered in- 
dispensable, and being an important part of the expense. The vines, 
one year old, may be had for $6 per 100, and are usually planted 
three by six feet apart — about 2,420 vines to the acre. They are 
trained to single poles or stakes, in the simple mode common in 
most wine countries ; and the product of the Catawba per acre is 
considerably more than that of the wine-grape in France. 



V. 

ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF VEGETABLE RACES. 

April, 1852. 

NOTWITHSTANDING all the drawbacks of the violent ex- 
tremes of climate, the United States, and especially all that 
belt of country lying between the Mohawk and the James Rivers, is 
probably as good a fruit country as can be found in the world. 
Whilst every American, travelling in the north of Europe, observes 
that very choice fruit, grown at great cost, and with the utmost care, 
is more certainly to be found in the gardens of the wealthy than 
with us, he also notices that the broad-cast production of tolerably 
good fruit in orchards and gardens, is almost nothing in Europe, 
when compared to what is seen in America. As we have already 
stated, one-fourth of the skill and care expended on fruit culture in 
the north of Europe, bestowed in America, would absolutely load 
every table with the finest fruits of temperate climates. 

As yet, however, we have not made any progress beyond com- 
mon orchard culture. In the majority of cases, the orchard is planted, 
cultivated two or three years with the plough, pruned badly three 
or four times, and then left to itself It is very true, that in the 
fruit gardens^ which begin to surround some of our older cities, the 
well-prepared soil, careful selections of varieties, judicious culture 
and pruning, have begun to awaken in the minds of the old fash- 
ioned cultivators a sense of astonishment as to the size and perfec- 
tion to which certain fruits can be brought, which begins to react 
on the countiy at large. Little by little, the orchardists ai-e begin- 
ning to be aware that it is better to plant fifty trees carefully, in 



ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF VEGETABLE RACES. 469 

well-prepared soil, than to stick in five hundred, by thrusting the 
roots in narrow holes, to struggle out an imperfect existence ; little 
by little, the horticultural shows and the markets have proved, that 
while fruit-trees of the best standard sorts cost no more than those 
of indifferent quality — the fruit they bear is worth ten times as 
much ; and thus by degrees, the indifterent orchards are being reno- 
vated by grafting, manuring, or altogether displaced by new ones of 
supeiior quality. 

Still, there are some important points in fruit culture overlooked. 
One of the most conspicuous of these is, that varieties may be 
found, or, if not existing, may be originated to suit every portion of 
the United States. Because a fruit-grower in the State of Maine, or 
the State of Louisiana, does not find, after making a trial of the 
fruits that are of the highest quality in New- York or Pensylvannia, 
that they are equally first rate with him, it by no means follows that 
such wished-for varieties may not be produced. Although there 
are a few sorts of fruits, like the Bartlett Pear, and the Roxbury 
Russet Apple, that seem to have a kind of cosmopolitan constitu- 
tion, by which they are almost equally at home in a cool or a hot 
country, they are the exceptions, and not the rule. The English 
Gooseberries may be said not to be at home any where in our 
country, except in the cool, northern parts of New England — Maine, 
for example. The foreign grape is fit for out-of-door culture no- 
where in the United States, and even the Newtown Pippin and the 
Spitzenberg apples, so unsurpassed on the Hudson, are worth little or 
nothing on the Delaware. On the other hand, in every part of the 
country, we see fruits constantly being originated — chance seedlings 
in the orchards, perfectly adapted to the climate and the soil, and 
occasionally of very fine quality. 

An apple-tree which pleased the emigrant on his homestead on 
the Connecticut, is carried, by means of grafts, to his new land in 
Missouri, and it fails to produce the same fine pippins that it did at 
home. But he sows the seeds of that tree, and from among many 
of indiflferent quality, he will often find one or more that shall not 
only equal or surpass its parent in all its ancient New England fla- 
vor, but shall have a western constitution, to make that flavor per- 
manent in the land of its birth. 



470 FRUIT. 

In this way, and for the most part by the ordinary chances and 
results of culture, and without a direct application of a scientific 
system, what may be called the natural limits of any fruit-tree or 
plant, may be largely extended. We say largely, because there are 
certain boundaries beyond which the plants of the tropics cannot 
be acclimated. The sugar cane cannot, by any process yet known, 
be naturalized on Lake Superior, or the Indian corn on Hudson's 
Bay. But every body at the South knows that the range of the 
sugar cane has been gradually extended northward, more than one 
hundred miles ; and the Indian corn is cultivated now, even far 
noi'th in Canada. 

It is by watching these natural laws, as seen here and there in 
irregular examples, and reducing them to something like a system, 
and acting upon the principles which may be deduced from them, 
that we may labor diligently towards a certain result, and not trust 
to chance, groping about in the dark, blindly. 

Although the two modes by which the production of a new va- 
riety of a fi'uit or flower — the first by saving the seeds of the very 
fruit only, and the other by cross-breeding when the flowers are 
about expanding — are very well known, and have been largely prac- 
tised by the florists and gardeners of Europe for many years, in 
bringing into existence most of the fine vegetables and flowers, and 
many of the fruits that we now possess, it is remarkable that little 
attention has been paid in all these efforts to acclimating the new 
sorts by scientific reproduction from seed. Thus, in the case of 
flowers — while the catalogues are filled "svith new verbenas every 
year, no one, as we can learn, has endeavored to originate a hardy 
verbena, though one of the trailing purple species is a hardy herba- 
ceous border flower — and perhaps hybrids might be I'aised between it 
and the scarlet soils, that would be lasting and invaluable ornaments 
to the garden. So with the gooseberry. This fruit shrub, so fine 
in the damp climate of England, is so unsuited to the United States 
generally — or at least most of the English sorts are — that not one 
busli in twenty, bears fruit free from mildew. And yet, so far as 
we know, no horticulturist has attempted to naturalize the cultivated 
gooseberry in the only way it is likely to become naturalized, viz. — 
by raising new varieties from seed in this country, so that they niay 



ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF VEGETABLE RACES. 4Yl 

have American constitutions, adapted to tlie American climate — 
and therefore not hkely to mildew. The same thing is true of the 
foreign grape. Millions of roots of the foreign grape have, fii'st 
and last, been planted in the United States. Hardly one can be 
pointed to that actually " succeeds " in the open-air culture — not 
from want of heat or light — for we have the greatest abundance of 
both ; but from the want of constitutional adaptation. And still 
the foreign grape is abandoned, except for vineries, without a fair 
trial of the only modes by which it would naturally be hoped to ac- 
climate it, ^'iz. — raising seedhngs here, and crossing it with our best 
native sorts. 

Every person interested in horticulture, must stumble upon facts 
almost daily, that teach us how much may be done by a new race 
or generation, in plants as well as men, that it is utterly out of the 
question for the old race to accomplish. Compare, in the Western 
States, the success of a colony of foreign emigrants in subduing the 
wilderness and mastering the land, with that of another comjjany 
of our own race — say of New Englanders. The one has to contend 
with all his old-world prejudices, habits of labor, modes of working ; 
the other being " to the manor born," &c., seizes the Yankee axe, 
and the forest, for the first time, acknowledges its master. While 
the old-countryman is endeavoring to settle himself snugly, and 
make a little neighborhood comfortable, the American husbandman 
has cleared and harvested a whole state. 

As in the man so in the plant. A race should be adapted to 
the soil by being produced upon it, of the best possible materials. 
The latter is as indispensable as the first — as it will not wholly sufiice 
that a man or a tree should be indigenous — or our American In- 
dians, or our Chickasaw Plums, would never have given place to 
either the Caucasian race, or the luscious " Jefferson ;" — but the 
best race being taken at the starting point, the highest utility and 
beauty will be found to spring from individuals adapted by birth, 
constitution, and education, to the country. Among a thousand na- 
tive Americans, there may be nine hundred no better suited to labor 
of the body or brains, than so many Europeans — but there will be 
five or ten that will reach a higher level of adaptation, or to use a 



472 FRUIT. 

western phrase, " climb higtier and dive deeper," than any man out 
of America. 

We are not going to be led into a physiological digression on 
the subject of the inextinguishable rights of a superior organization 
in certain men and races of men, which nature every day reaffirms, 
notwithstanding the socialistic and democratic theories of our poli- 
ticians. But we will undertake to say, that if the races or plants 
were as much improved as they might be, and as much adapted to 
the various soils and climates of the Union, as they ought to be, 
there is not a single square mile in the United States, that might 
not boast its peaches, melons, apples, gi'apes, and all the other luxu- 
ries of the garden now confined to a comparatively limited range. 

And this is not only the most interesting of all fields for the 
lover of the country and the garden, but it is that one precisely 
ready to be put in operation at this season. The month of April is 
the blossoming season over a large part of the country, and the blos- 
som governs and fixes the character of the new race, by giving a 
character to the seed. Let those who are not already fomiliar with 
hybridizing and cross-breeding of plants — always effected when they 
are in bloom — read the chapter on this subject in our " Fruit Trees," 
or any other work which treats of this subject. Let them ascertain 
what are the desiderata for their soil and climate, which have not 
yet been supplied, and set about giving that character to the new 
seedlings, which a careful selection from the materials at hand, and 
a few moments light and pleasant occupation will afford. If the 
man who only made two blades of grass grow where one gi-ew be- 
fore, has been pronounced a benefactor to mankind, certainly he is 
far more so who originates a new variety of grain, vegetable, or 
fruit, adapted to a soil and climate where it before refused to grow 
— since thousands may continue to reap the benefit of the labors of 
the latter for an indefinite length of time, while the former has only 
the merit of being a good farmer for the time being. 



LETTERS FROM ENGUm 



LETTERS FEOM ENGLAND. 



I. 



WAmVICK CASTLE: KENILWORTH : STRATFORD-ON- 
AVON. 

July, 1850. 

MY DEAR SIR : — As, after looking at some constellation in a 
summer night, one remembers most vividly its largest and 
most potent star, so, from amid a constellation of fine country-seats, 
I can write you to-day only of my visit to one, but that one wliicli, 
for its peculiar extent, overtops all the rest — Warwick Castle. 

Warwick Castle, indeed, combines in itself perhaps more of ro- 
mantic and feudal interest than any actual residence in Europe, and 
for this very reason, because it unites in itself the miracle of exhib- 
iting at the same moment hoar antiquity, and the actual vivid pre- 
sent, having been held and maintained fi'om first to last by the same 
family. In most of the magnificent country-seats of England, it is 
rather vast extent and enormous expense which impresses one. If 
they are new, they are sometimes overloaded with elaborate details ;* 

* Like Eton Hall, near Liverpool, perhaps visited by more Americans 
than any other seat — though the architecture is meretricious, and the whole 
place as wanting in genuine taste as it is abounding in evidences of immense 
wealth. Warwick Castle bears, to an American, the same relation to all 
modern castles that the veritable Noah's ark, if it could be found still in full 
preservation, would to a model made by an ingenious antiqujft'ian. 



476 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND, 

if old, they are often modernized in so tasteless a manner as to des- 
troy all sentiment of antiquity. Plate glass windows ill accord with 
antique casements, and Paris furniture and upholstery are not in 
keeping with apartments of the time of Elizabeth. 

In Warwick Castle and all that belongs to it, I found none of 
this. All was entire harmony, and I lingered within and about it, 
enjoying its absolue perfection, as if the whole were only conjured 
up by an enchanter's spell, and would soon dissolve into thin air. 
And yet, on the contrary, I knew that here was a building which is 
more than nine hundi'ed years old ; which has been the residence 
of successive generations of the same family for centuries ; Avhich 
was the fortress of that mightiest of English subjects, Warwick, 
" the great king-maker," (who boasted that he had deposed three 
English sovereigns and placed three in their vacant throne,) which, 
long before the discovery of America, was the scene of wild jarring 
and haughty chivalry, bloody prowess — yes, and of gentle love and 
sweet affections, but which, as if defying time, is still a castle, as 
real in its character as a feudal stronghold, and yet as complete a 
baronial residence, as the imagination can conceive. To an Ameri- 
can, whose country is but two hundred years old, the bridging over 
such a vast chasm of time by the domestic memorials of a single 
family, when, as in this case, that family has so made its mark upon 
the early annals of his own race, there is something that approaches 
the sublime. 

The small town of Warwick, a quaint old place, which still 
bears abundant traces of its Saxon origin, is situated nearly in the 
centre of England, and lies on one side of the castle, to which it is 
a mere dependency. It is placed on a rising hill or knoll, the castle 
occupying the highest part, though mostly concealed from the town 
by thick plantations. Around the other sides of the castle flows 
the Avon, a lovely stream, whose poetical fame has not belied its 
native charms ; and beyond it stretch away the broad lands which 
belong to the castle. 

The finest approach for the stranger is from the pretty toi^m of 
Leamington, about two miles east of Warwick. At a turn, a few 
hundred rods distant from the castle, the road crosses the Avon by 



WARWICK CASTLE : KENILWORTH : STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 477 

a wide bridge with a mossy stone balustrade, and here, looking 
upward, 

" Bosomed high in tufted trees, 
Towft-s and battlements he sees." 

The banks of the stream are finely fringed with foliage; beyond 
iliem are larger trees ; upon the rising ground in the rear grow lofty 
and venerable chestnuts, oaks, and elms ; and over this superb fore- 
ground, rises up, grand and colossal, the huge pile of gray stone, 
softened by the effects of time, and the rich masses of climbers that 
hang like floating drapery about it. For a few moments you lose 
sight of it, and the carriage suddenly stops before a high embattled 
wall, where the porter answers the knock by slowly unfolding the 
massive iron gates of the portal. Driving through this gateway you 
wind through a deep cut in the solid rock, almost hidden by the 
masses of ivy that hang along its sides, and in a few moments find 
yourself directly before the entrance front of the castle. Whoever 
designed this front, made up as it is of lofty towers and irregular 
wall, must have been a poet as well as^rchitect, for its composition 
and details struck me as having the proportions and congruity of a 
fine scene in nature, which we feel is not to be measured and defined 
by the ordinary rules of art. And as it rose up before me, hoary 
and venerable, yet solid and complete, I could have believed that it 
Avas rather a magnificent effort of nature than any work of mere 
tools and masonry. 

In the central tower opened another iron gate, and driving 
through a deep stone archway, I found myself in the midst of a 
large open space of nearly a couple of acres, carpeted with the 
finest turf, dotted with groups of aged trees and shrubs, and sur- 
rdunded on all sides by the castle walls. This is the inner court- 
yard of the castle. Around it, forming four sides, are grouped in 
the most picturesque and majestic manner, the varied forms- and 
outlines of the vast pile, partly hidden by the rich drapery of ivy 
and old mossy trees. On the most sheltered side of the circular 
walk which surrounds this court-yard, among many fine evergreens, 
I noticed two giant Arbutuses (a shrub which I have vainly attempt- 
ed to acclimatize in the northern States,) more than thirty feet high, 



478 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

with trunks a couple of feet in diameter, the growth of more than 
200 years. 

On the south side of tliis court lies the principal mass of the 
castle, aftbrding an unbroken suite of rooms «33 feet long. At the 
northeast, Cassar's tower, built in Saxon times, — the oldest part of 
the whole edifice, whose exact date is unknown — which rises dark, 
gloomy and venerable, above all the rest ; while at the southeast 
stands the tower built by the great Warwick — broader and more 
massive, and partly hidden by huge chestnuts. The other sides are 
not inhabited, but still remain as originally built, — a vast mass of 
walls, with embattled parapets broken by towers with loopholes and 
positions for defence — but with their sternness and severity broken 
by the tender drapery of vines and shrubs, and the luxuriant beauty 
of the richest verdure. 

In the centre of the south side of this noble court-yard, you 
enter the castle by a few steps. Passing through the entrance hall, 
you reach the great hall, vast, baronial and magnificent — the floor 
paved with marble — and the roof carved in oak. Along the sides, 
Avhich are panelled in da^ cedar, are hung the armor and the 
weapons of every age since the first erection of the castle. I was 
shown the leather shirt, with its blood-stains blackened by time, 
worn by an ancestor of the present earl, who was slain at the battle 
of Litchfield, and many other curious and powerfid weapons used 
by the great warriors of the family through a course of centuries. 

On either side of this hall, to the right and left, in a straight 
line, extend the continuous suite of apartments. The first on the 
right is the ante- drawing-room, the walls crimson and gold ; next, 
the cedar drawing-room — the walls richly wainscoted with wood of 
the cedar of Lebanon ; third, the great drawing-room, finely propor- 
tioned and quite perfect in tone — its walls delicate apple-green, re- 
lieved by a little pure Avhite, and enriched with gilding ; next, 
Queen Anne's state bedroom, with a superb state bed presented to 
the then Earl of Warwick, by that queen, being antique, with tapes- 
try, and decorated with a fine full-length picture of Queen Anne ; 
and beyon(?this a cabinet filled with the choicest specimens of an- 
cient Venetian art and workmanship. Behind the hall is the chapel, 
and on the left the suite is continued in the same manner as on the 



WARWICK CASTLE : KENILWORTH : STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 479 

right. Of course a good deal of the fui-niture has been removed 
from time to time, and large portions of the interior have been re- 
stored by the present earl. But this has been done with such admi- 
rable taste that there is nothing which disturbs the unity of the whole. 
The furniture is all of dark wood, old cabinets richly inlaid with 
brass, old carved oaken couches, or those rich mosaic tables which 
were brought to England in the palmy days of the Italian states. 
Every thing looks old, genuine and original. The apartments were 
hung with very choice pictures by Van Dyck, Titian and Rubens — 
among which I noticed a magnificent head of Cromwell, and 
another of Queen Mary, that riveted my attention — the former by 
its expression of the powerful self-centred soul, and the latter by 
the crushed and broken-hearted pensiveness of the countenance — 
for it was Mary at 40, just before her death — still beautiful and 
noble, but with the marks in her features of that suffering which 
alone reveals to us the dej^th of the soul. 

Not to weary you with the interior of what is only the first floor 
of the castle, let me take you to one of the range of large, deep, 
sunny windows which lights the whole of this suite of apartments 
on their southern side. Each window is arched overhead and wain- 
scoted on the side, and as the walls of the castle are 1 to 1 2 feet thick, 
and each window above 8 feet wide, it forms almost a little room 
or closet by itself. And from these windows how beautiful the land- 
scape ! Although we entered these apartments by only a few steps 
from the level of the court-yard, yet on looking from these windows 
I found myself more than 60 feet above the Avon, which almost 
washes the base of the castle walls on this side, winding about in 
the most graceful curve, and losing itself in the distance among 
groups of aged elms. On this side of the castle, beyond the Avon, 
stretches away the park of about a thousand acres. As far as the 
eye reaches it is a beautiful English landscape, of fresh turf and fine 
gi-oups of trees — and beyond it, for several miles, lie the rich farm 
lands of the Warwick estate. There are few pictures moi-e lovely 
than such a rural scene, and perhaps its quietness and serenity were 
enhanced by contrast with the sombre grandeur of the feudal court- 
yard where I first entered. 

Passing through a gate in the castle wall, I entered the pleasure 



480 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

grounds, and saw in the orangery or green-house, the celebrated 
Warwi(;k vase — the giant among vases. It is a magnificent mass 
of marble, weighing 8 tons, of beautiful proportions, of which re- 
duced copies are now familiar to us all over the world. It was 
brought from the temple of Vesta, and is larger than I had been led 
to believe, holding nearly two hogsheads. It is also rather more 
globular in form, and more delicate in detail than one would sup- 
pose from the copies. 

In the pleasure grounds my admiration was riveted by the 
" cedar walk" — a fine avenue of cedars of Lebanon — that noblest of 
evergreens — some sixty feet high, a tree which in its stately sym- 
metry and great longevity, seemed a worthy companion of this 
princely castle. But even the cedar of Lebanon is too short-lived, 
for the two oldest trees which stand almost close to the southern 
walls of the castle, and which are computed to be about five hun- 
dred years old — gigantic and venerable in appearance — have lately 
lost several of their finest branches, and are evidently fast going to 
decay. It was striking to me to see, on the other hand, how much 
the hoary aspect of the outer walls of the castle were heightened 
by the various beautiful vines and climbers intermingled with hare- 
bells, daisies and the like, which had sprung up of themselves on 
the crevices of the mighty walls that overhang the Avon, and, sus- 
tained by the moisture of its perennial waters, were allowed to grow 
and flower without molestation, though every thing else that hastens 
the decay of the building is jealously guarded against. 

If any thing more were wanting to heighten the romantic interest 
of this place, it would be found in the relics which are kept, partly 
in the castle, and partly in the apartments at the outer portal, of the 
famous Guj?^, Earl of Warwick, who lived in Saxon times, and whose 
history and exploits heretofore always seemed as fabulous to me as 
those of Blue-Beard himself. Still, here is his sword, au enormous 
weapon six feet long, which it requires both hands to lift, his breast- 
plate weighing fifty-two pounds, and his helmet seven pounds. The 
size of these (and their genuineness is beyond dispute,) shows that 
he must have been a man whose gigantic stature almost warrants the 
belief in the miracles of valor which he performed in battle — as an 
enormous iron " porridge pot" of singular clumsy antique form, which 



i 



WARWICK CASTLE : KENILWORTH : STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 481 

holds 102 gallons, does any amount of credulity as to the digestive 
powers necessary to sustain the Colossus who slew all the dragons 
of his day. 

While I was at Warwick, I ascended on a fine moonlight evening, 
the top of the highest tower, commanding the whole panorama of 
feudal castle, tributary town, and lovely landscape. It would be 
vain to attempt to describe the powerful emotions that such a scene 
and its many associations, under such circumstances, awakened 
within me ; but I turned my face at last, westward, toward my native 
land, and with uplifted eyes thanked the good God, that, though to 
England, the country of my ancestors, it had been given to show 
the growth of man in his highest development of class or noble, to 
America has been reserved the greater blessing of solving for the 
world the true problem of all humanity — that of the abolition of all 
castes, and the recognition of the divine rights of every human 
soul. 

This neighborhood is equally beautiful to the eye of the pictu- 
resque or the agricultural tourist. I was shown farms on the War- 
wick estate which are let out to tenants at over £2 per acre — and 
everywhere the richness of the grain-fields gave evidence both of 
high cultivation and excellent soil. The chief difference, after all, 
between an English rural landscape and one in the older and better 
cultivated parts of the United States, is almost wholly in the univer- 
sality of verdant hedges, and the total absence of all other fences. 
The hedges (for the most part of hawthorn) divide all the farm- 
fields, and line all the roadsides — and even the borders of the rail- 
ways, in all parts of the country. I was quite satisfied with the 
truth of this conjecture, when I came accidentally, in my drive yes- 
terday, upon a little spot of a few rods — where the hedges had been 
destroyed, and a temporary post and rail fence, like those at home, 
put in their place. The whole thing was lowered at once to the 
harshness and rickety aspect of a farm at home. The majority of 
the farm hedges are only trimmed once a year — in winter — and 
therefore have, perhaps, a more natural and picturesque look than 
the more carefully trimmed hedges of the gardens. Hence, for a 
farm hedge, a plant should be chosen that will grow thick of itself 
with only this single annual clipping, and which will adapt itself to 
31 



482 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND, 

all soils. I am, therefore, confirmed in my belief, that the buck- 
thorn is the farmer's hedge plant for America, and I am also satis- 
fied that it will make a better and for more durable liedge than the 
hawthorn does, even here. 

Though England is beautifully wooded, yet the great preponder- 
ance of the English elm — a tree wanting in grace, and only grand 
when very old, renders an English roadside landscape in this 
respect, one of less sylvan beauty than our finest scenery of like 
character at home. The American elm, with its fine drooping 
branches, is rarely or never seen here, and there is none of that 
variety of foliage which we have in the United States. For this 
reason (leaving out of sight rail fences), I do not think even the 
drives through Warwickshire so full of rural beauty as those in the 
valley of the Connecticut — which they most resemble. In June 
our meadows there are as verdant, and our trees incomparably more 
varied and beautiful. On the other hand, you must remember that 
here, wealth and long civilization have so refined and perfected the 
details, that in this respect there is no comparison — nothing in short 
to be done but to admire and enjoy. For instance, for a circuit of 
eight or ten miles or more here, between Leamington and Warwick 
and Stratford-on-Avon, the roads, which are admirable, are regularly 
sprinkled every dry day in summer, while along the railroads the 
sides are cultivated with grass, or farm crops or flowers, almost to 
the very rails. 

The ruins of Kenilworth, only five miles from Warwick, have 
been so often visited and described that they are almost familiar to 
you. Though built long after Warwick castle, this vast palace, 
which covered (including the garden walls) six or seven acres, is 
entirely in ruins — like most of the very old castles in England. The 
magnificent suites of apartments where the celebrated Earl of Lei- 
cester, the favorite of Elizabeth, entertained his sovereign with such 
regal magnificence, are roofless and desolate — only here and there a 
fragment of a stately window^ or a splendid hall, attesting the beauty 
of the noble architecture. Over such of the walls and towers as are 
yet st^inding, grows, however, the most gigantic trees of ivy — abso- 
lutely trees — with trunks more than two feet in diameter, and rich 
masses of foliage, that covered the hoary and crumbling walls with 



WARWICK CASTLE : KENILWORTH : STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 483 

a drapeiy so thick that I could not fathom it with an arm's length. 
When the ivy gets to be a couple of hundred years old, it loses 
something of its vine-like character, and more resembles a gigantic 
laurel tree, growing against and partly hiding the venerable walls. 

In the ancient pleasure-grounds of Kenilworth — those very 
pleasure-grounds whose alleys, doubtless Elizabeth and Leicester had 
trodden together, I saw remaining the most beautiful hedges of old, 
gold and silver holly — almost (to one fond of gardening) of them- 
selves worth coming across the Atlantic to see — so rich were they 
in their variegated glossy foliage, and so large and massive in their 
growth. As these ruins are open to the public, and are visited by 
thousands, the keepers find it to their account to preserve, as much as 
possible, the relics of the old garden in good order, though the pal- 
ace itself is past all renovation. 

In this neighborhood, at a distance of eight miles, is also that 
spot dearest to all who speak the English language, and all who re- 
spect human genius, Stratford-on-Avon. The coachman who drove 
me thither from Warwick Castle, and whose mind probably mea- 
sures greatness by the size of the dwelling it inhabits — volunteered 
the information to me on the way there that it was " a very smallish 
poor sort of a house," that I was going to see. As I stood within 
the walls of the humble room, little more than seven feet high, and 
half a dozen yards long, where the greatest of poets was born and 
passed so many days of his life, I involuntarily uncovered my head 
and felt how much more sublime is the power of genius, which 
causes this simplest of birth-places to move a deeper chord in the 
heart than all the pomj) and external circumstance of high birth or 
heroic achie\'ements, based as they mostly are, upon the more selfish 
side of man's nature. It was, indeed, a very " smallish " house, but 
it was large enough to be the home of the mightiest soul that Eng- 
land's sky ever covered. 

Not far distant is the parish church, where Shakspeare lies 
buried. An avenue of lime-trees, singularly clipped so as to form 
an arbor, leads across the churchyard to the porch. Under a large 
slab of coarse stone, lies the remains of the gi-eat dramatist, bearing 
the simple and terse epitaph composed by himself; and above it, 
upon the walls, is the monumental bust which is looked upon as the 



484 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

most authentic likeness. It has, to my eye, a wooden and unmean- 
ing expression, with no merit as a work of ai"t — and if there is any 
truth in physiognomy could not have been a likeness — for the upper 
lip is that of a man wholly occupied with self-conceit. I prefer 
greatly, the portrait in Warwick Castle — which shows a face paler 
and strongly marked with traces of thought, and an eye radiant 
with the fire of genius — but ready with a warm, lightning glance, 
to read the souls of others. 

I write you from London, where I have promised to make a 
visit to Sir William Hooker, who is the director of the Royal Bo- 
tanic Garden at Kew, and have accepted an in\atation fi'ora the 
Duke of Northumberland to see the fine trees at Sion House. 



11. 



KEW-GARDENS: NEW HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT: A 
NOBLEMAN'S SEAT. 

August, 1850. 

MY DEAR SIR : — I intended to say something to you in this 
letter of the enormous parks of London — absolute woods and 
prairies, in the midst of a vast and j^opulous city ; but the subject 
is one that demands more space than I have at my disposal to-day, 
and I shall therefore reserve it for the future. I will merely say, 
en passant^ that every American who visits London, whether for the 
first or the fiftieth time, feels mortified that no city in the United 
States has a public park — here so justly considered both the highest 
luxury and necessity in a great city. What are called parks in 
New- York, are not even apologies for the thing ; they are only 
squares, or paddocks. In the parks of London, you may imagine 
yourself in the depths of the country, with, apparently, its bound- 
less space on all sides ; its green turf, fresh air, and, at certain times 
of the day, almost its solitude and repose. And at other times, 
they are the healthful breathing zone of hundreds of thousands of 
citizens ! 

The National Garden at Kew. — I have just come from a 
visit to Sir William Hooker's, at Kew Park. He is the director 
of the Royal Gardens at Kew, — a short distance from his house, — 
where we spent almost the entire day together, exploring in detail 
the many intersting features of this place, now admitted to be the 
finest public botanic garden in Europe. 

It is ouly within a few yeare that Kew Gardens have been given 



486 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

lip to the public ; and it is wliolly owing to the spirited administra- 
tion of Sir William Hooker — so well known in both hemispheres 
for his botanical science — that it has lately reached so high a rank 
among botanical collections. Originally, the place is interesting, as 
having been the favorite suburban residence of various branches of 
the royal family. George III. lived here ; and here Queen Char- 
lotte died. The botanical taste of the latter is well known, and 
has been commemorated in that striking and beautiful plant, the 
Strelitzia, named in her honor* by Sir Joseph Banks. For a 
long time the garden was the receptacle of all the rare plants col- 
lected by Englisli travellers — Capt. Cook, Sir Joseph Banks, Cun- 
ningham, and others. What was formerly of little value has, how- 
ever, lately become a matter of national pride ; and this is owing 
to the fact, that the present queen has wholly given Kew up to the 
public, even adding a considerable sum annually from her private 
purse towarjjs maintaining it. The old " Kew Palace," which 
stands in the grounds, is a small, simple, brick mansion, without tho . 
least pretension to state, and shows very conclusively that those of 
the Hanover family who lived here did it from real attachment to 
the place — like Queen Charlotte, from love of botany ; as there is 
nothing about it to please the tastes of an ambitious mind. 

As Kew has been already described by one of the correspond- 
ents of this journal, I shall not go into those details which might 
otherwise be looked for. I shall rather prefer to give you a com- 
prehensive idea of the attractions of the place, which, though about 
eight miles fi-om London, was visited last year by one hundred and 
thirty-seven thousand persons. The only requisite for admission is 
to be decently dressed. 

When you hear of a garden, in America, you fancy some little 
place, filled with borders and beds of shrubs and flowers, and laid 
out with walks in various styles. Dispossess your mind at once, 
however, of any such notions as applied to Kew. Fancy, on the 
other hand, a surface of about two hundred acres ; about sixty of 
which is the botanic garden proper, and the rest open park or plea- 
sure-grounds. The groundwork of the whole is turf; that is, 

* She was Princess of the house of Mecklenberar Strelitz. 



KEW GARDENS. 487 

smoothly-mown lawn in the sixty acres of botanic garden, and park- 
like lawn, occasionally mown, in the remainder. Over this, is pic- 
tm-esquely disposed a large growth of fine trees — in the botanic 
garden, of all manner of rare species, every exotic that will thrive 
in England — growing to their natural size without being in the least 
crowded — tall pines, gi'and old Cedars of Lebanon, and all sorts of 
rare deciduous trees. Between the avenues and groups are large open 
glades of smooth lawn, in which are distributed hot-houses, orna- 
mental cottages, a large lake of water, parterres of brilliant flowers 
for show, and a botanical arrangement of plants, shrubs, and trees 
for scientific study. 

In the centre of a wide glade of turf rises up the new palm- 
house, built in 1848. It is a palace of glass — 362 feet in length, 
and 66 feet high — and fairy-like and elegant in its proportions, 
though of gTeat strength ; for the whole, framework and sashes, is 
of cast iron, glazed with 45,000 feet of glass. You open the door, 
and, but for the glass roof that you see instead of sky above your 
head, you might believe yourself in the West Indies. Lofty palm 
trees, thirty or forty feet high, are growing, rooted in the deep soil 
beneath your feet, with the same vigor and luxuriance as in the 
West Indies. Huge clusters of golden bananas hang across the 
walks, and cocoa-nut trees, forty-two feet high, wave their tufts of 
leaves over your head. The foliage of the cinnamon and camphor 
scents the atmosphere, and rich air-plants of South America dazzle 
the eye with their strange and fanciful blossoms. Most beautiful 
of all are the tree feiitis, with trunks eight or ten inches in diameter, 
and lofty heads, crowned with plume-like tufts of the most delicate 
and gTaceful of all foliage. From the light iron gallery, which runs 
round the inside of this tropical forest-conservatory, you look down 
on the richest assemblage of vegetable forms that can be conceived ; 
while over your head clamber, under the iron rafters, in charming 
luxuriance, the richest passion flowers and other vines of the East 
Indian islands. 

If you are interested in exotic botany, you may leave this palm 
house, and pass the entire day in only a casual inspection of the 
treasures of other climates, collected here from all parts of the 
world. Green-houses, the stoves, the orchidaceous house, the Aus- 



488 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

tralian house, the New-Zealand house, and a dozen other glass 
structures, contain all the riches of the vegetable kingdom which will 
not bear the open air, — and each in the highest state of cultivation. 
Giant cactuses from Mexico, fourteen feet high, and estimated to be 
four hundred years old, and rock gardens under glass, filled with all 
the ferns and epiphytes of South Ameiica, detain and almost satiate 
the eye with their wonderful variety, and grotesqueness of forms 
and colors. 

In the open grounds are many noble specimens of hardy trees, 
of great beauty, which I must pass by without even naming them, 
I saw here the old Deodar cedar and araucaria imbricata in Eng- 
land, each about twenty-five feet high, and justiiylng all the praises 
that have been lavished upon them ; the former as the most grace- 
ful, and the latter the boldest and most picturesque of all evergreens. 
The trunk of the largest araucaria, or Chili pine, here, is of the 
thickness of a man's leg ; and the tree looks, at a distance, like a 
gigantic specimen of deep green coral from the depths of the ocean. 
I was glad to know, from experience, that those two noble ever- 
greens are quite hardy in the northern States. You may judge of 
the scale on which things are planned in Kew, when I mention that 
there is a wide avenue of Deodars, newly planted (extending along 
one of the vistas from the palm-house), 2,800 feet long. A steam 
engine occupying the lower part, and a great reservoir the upper 
part of a lofty tower, supplies, by the aid of concealed pipes, the 
whole of tha botanic garden with water. 

I should not omit the museum — a department lately com- 
menced, and upon Avhich Sir William Hooker is expending much 
time. It is in some respects, perhaps, the most useful and valua- 
ble feature in the establishment. Here are collected, in a dried 
state, all the curious and valuable vegetable products — especially 
those useful in the arts, medicine, and domestic economy — all the 
raw vegetable materials — the fibre — the manufectured products, etc. 
Here, one may see the gutta percha, of the East Indies, in all its 
states — the maple sugar of America — the lace-bark of Jamaica — 
the teas of China, and a thousand other like useful vegetable pro- 
ducts, arranged so as to show the stages of growth and manufac- 



NEW HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. 489 

ture. Collections of all the fine woods, and specimens of interesting 
seeds, are also kept in glass cases duly labelled. 

Now that I have perhaps feebly given you a coup cfoeil of the 
whole (omitting numberless leading features for want of time and 
space), you must, in order to give the scene its highest interest, 
imagine the grounds, say at 2 o'clock, filled with a thousand or 
twelve hundred men, women and children, of all ages, — well dress- 
ed, orderly and neat, and examining all with interest and delight. 
You see that they have access, not only to the open grounds, but 
all the hot-houses, full of rare plants and flower-gardens, gay with 
the most tempting materials for a nosegay. Yet, not a plant is 
injured — not the least harm is done to the rai'est blossom. Sir 
William assured me that when he first proposed to try the experi- 
ment of throwing the whole collection open to the public, many 
persons believed it would prove a fatal one ; that, in short, Anglo- 
Saxons could not be trusted to run at large in public gardens, full 
of rarities. It has, however, turned out quite the contrary, as he 
wisely believed ; and I learned with pleasure (for the fact has a 
bearing at home), that on days when there had been three thousand 
persons in the garden at a time, the destruction did not amount to 
the value of fourpence ! On the other hand, the benefits are not 
only felt indirectly, in educating, refining, and elevating the people, 
but directly in the application of knowledge to the arts of life. I 
saw, for example, artists busy in the garden, who had come miles 
to get an accurate drawing of some plant necessary to their studies; 
and artisans and manufacturers in the museum, who had been 
attracted there solely to investigate some matter connected with 
their business, in the productions of the loom or the workshop. 

In short, I left Kew with the feeling, that a national garden in 
America might not only be a beautiful, but a most useful and popu- 
lar establishment ; one not too dearly bought, even at the expense 
bestowed annually upon Kew. 

The New Houses of Parliament. — I spent a whole morn- 
ing with Mr. Barry, the distinguished architect of the new houses 
of Parliament, in examining every part in detail. It is a common 
feeling that the age for such gigantic works in architecture as the 
Gothic cathedrals, h;i3 gone by. Perhaps this may be the case. 



490 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

with religious edifices ; though I douht even that, with such a great 
churcli and state empire as Russia growing up, and aheady casting 
a g-igantic, though yet vague shadow over Europe. But here is cer- 
tainly a flat denial of the opinion, in this new legislative hall of 
Great Britain — quite the masterpiece of modern Gothic architecture 
(excepting perhaps the cathedral of Strasbourg). Concisely, this vast 
pile, not yet finished, covers, with its courts, about eight acres of 
ground. Ten years have been consumed in its erection ; and as 
many more will probably be required for its completion. You must 
remember, too, that not only have as many as 3000 men been em- 
ployed on it at a time, but all appliances of steam-lifting and other 
machinery are used besides, which were not known in the days of 
cathedrals. 

The style chosen by Mr. Barry is the perpendicular, or latest 
decorated Gothic — the exterior, rather very nearly akin to that of 
the beautiful town halls of the Low Countries, than that of any 
English examples. The stone is a hard limestone from Yorkshire, 
of a drab color ; and the decorative sculpture is elaborate and beau- 
tiful in the highest degree. What particularly charmed me, was 
the elegance, resulting from the union of fine proportions and select 
forms of modern cultivated tastes, with the peculiarly grand and ve- 
nerable character of Gothic architecture. One is so accustomed to 
see only strength and picturesqueness in middle-age examples, that 
one almost limits the pointed style to this compass. But Mr. Barry 
has conclusively shown that that elegance — which is always and 
only the result of fine proportions — is a beauty of which Gothic archi- 
tecture is fully capable. Of the splendor of the House of Lords, and 
the richness and chasteness of many other portions of the building, 
you have already had many accounts. I will therefore only say, at 
present, that so carefully has the artistic etfect of every portion of 
this vast building been studied, that not a hinge, the key of a door, 
or even ihQ candlesticks on the tables, has been bought at the deal- 
er's ; but every detail that meets the eye has been especially design- 
ed for the building. The result, as you may suppose, is a unity 
and harmony throughout, which must be seen to be thoroughly ap- 
preciated. 

The "profession has often found fault with the employment of a 



A nobleman's seat. 491 

florid Gothic architecture for this building. Certainly, it looks like 
throwing away such delicate details, — to pile them up amid the 
smoke of London, Avhich is, indeed, already beginning to blacken and 
deface them. But, on the other hand, the beauty and fitness of the 
style for the interior seem to me unquestionable. The very com- 
plexity appears in keeping with the intricate machinery of a gov- 
ernment, that rules an empire almost extending over half the 
globe. 

Picture of a Nobleman's Seat. — I shall finish this letter with 
a sketch of a nobleman's seat, where I am just now making a visit ; 
and can therefore give you the outlines in a better light than ti-avel- 
lers generally can do. The seat is called Wimpole — the property 

of the Earl of H ,'^and is situated in the fine agricultural district 

of Cambridgeshire. It is not a " show place ;" and though a resi- 
dence of the first class, especially in extent, it is only a fair speci- 
men of what you may find, with certain variations, in many counties 
in England. 

The landed estate, then, amounts to more than thirty-seven thou- 
sand acres — a large part admirably cultivated. The mansion, which 
stands in the midst of one of those imm^|«e and beautiful parks 
which one only finds in England, is a spacious pile in the Roman 
style, four hundred and fifty feet front ; rather plain and antique 
without, but internally beautiful, and in the highest degree complete 
— both as regards arrangement and decoration. The library, for 
example, is sixty feet long, quite filled with a rich collection of books. 
The suite of drawing-rooms abounds with pictures by Van Dyck, 
Rubens, and other great masters ; and there is a private chapel, in 
which prayers are read every morning, capable of containing a 
couple of hundred persons. 

In front of the house, a broad level surface of park stretches be- 
fore the eye, and is finely taken advantage of as a position for one 
of the noblest avenues of grand old elms that I have seen in Eng- 
land ; an avenue three miles long, and very wide — not cut in two 
by a road,* but carpeted with grass, like a broad aisle of verdure. 
Place at the end of this a distant hill, and let the avenue be the 

* The approach is at the side. 



492 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

central feature to a wide park, that rises into hills and flows into 
graceful swells behind the house, and fill it with herds of deer and 
groups of fine cattle, and you have a general idea of the sylvan fea- 
tures of Wimpole. 

But it is not yet complete. Behind the house, and separated 
from the park by a terrace walk, is a parterre flower-garden, lying 
directly under the windows of the drawing-rooms. Like all Eng- 
lish flower-gardens, it is set in velvet lawn — each bed composed of 
a single species — the most brilliant and the most perpetual bloom- 
ers that can be found. Something in the soil or culture here seems 
admirably adapted to perfect them, too ; for nowhere have I seen 
the beds so closely covered with foliage, and so thickly sprinkled 
with bloom. Some of them are made of two new varieties of scar- 
let geraniums, with variegated leaves, that have precisely the effect 
of a mottled pattern in worsted embroidery. 

Beyond this lie the pleasure-grounds, — picturesque, winding 
walks, leading a long way, admirably planted with groups and 
masses of the finest evergreens and deciduous trees. Here is a weep- 
ing ash, the branches of which fall over an arbor in the form of half 
a globe, fifty feet in dimeter ; and a Portugal laurel, the trunk of 
which measures three feet in circumference. A fine American black- 
walnut tree was pointed out to me as something rare in England. 
And the underwood is made up of rich belts and masses of rhodo- 
dendrons and English laurels. 

I must beg you to tell my lady friends at home, that many of 
thcin would be quite ashamed were they in England, at their igno- 
rance of gardening, and their want of interest in country life. Here, 
for instance, I have been walking for several hours to-day through 
these beautiful grounds with the Countess of H., who, though a 
most accomplished person in all other matters, has a knowledge of 
every thing relating to rural life, that would be incomprehensible to 
most American ladies. Every improvement or embellishment is 
planned under her special direction. Every plant and its culture 
are familiar to her ; and there is no shrinking at barn-yards — no 
affected fear of cows — no ignorance of the dairy and poultry-yard. 
On the contrary, one is delighted with the genuine enthusiasm and 
knowledge that the highest class (and indeed all classes) show in 



A NOBLEMAN 8 SEAT, 493 

the country life here, and the great amount of health and happiness 
it gives rise to. The life of an English woman of rank, in the coun- 
try, is not the drawing-room languor which many of my charming 
country-women fancy it. Far from it. On the contrary, it is full 
of the most active duties and enjoyments. But it must be admitted 
that the cool and equal temperature of the summers here, is greatly 
more inviting to exercise than our more sultry atmosphere at home. 

We measured, in the course of the morning's ramble, several 
English elms, with which the park here abounds, from fifteen to 
eighteen feet in circumference.* I was not so much surprised at 
this, as at the grandeur of the horse chestnuts, which are truly ma- 
jestic — many measuring not less in girth, with a much greater 
spread of branches ; each lower branch of the dimensions of an or- 
dinary trunk, and, after stretching far out from the parent stem, 
drooping (iown and resting upon the turf, like a giant's elbow, and 
then turning up again in the most picturesque manner. The trees 
in England have a more uniform deep green tint than with us, which 
I think rather lessens the richness and variety of the landscape. 

The queen made a visit here in 1844 ; and as every thing which 
royalty does in a monarchy is commemorated — and especially when, 
as in the present case, the character of the sovereign is a really good 
one — I was shown a handsome new gate at the side of the park, 
opposite to that which I entered, with a striking lodge in the Italian 
taste, bearing the royal arms, and called the "Victoria gate." 
What interested me much more, was an alms-house, built and man- 
aged wholly by Lady H., as a refuge for deserving persons, grown 
old or infirm in the service of the family, and^ unable, through ill 
health or incapacity, to take care of themselves. The building — 
cottage-like — is not only quite an ornamental structure in the old 
English manner, but the interior is planned so as to secure the gTeat- 
est comfort and convenience of the inmates. Nothing could be 
more delightful than the kind interest felt and acknowledged be- 
tween the benevolent originator of this charity and those who were 
its recipients. The eyes of an infirm old woman, to whom my hav- 

* But, after all, not so noble or beautiful as, in their heads, the American 
elms iu the Connecticut valley. 



494 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

ing come fi-ora America was mentioned, and who had sons in the 
new world, brightened up with a strange joy at seeing one from a 
land where her heart had evidently been of late more busy than at 
home. " It was a good country," she said ; " her sons had bought 
land, and were doing famous." For a working man to own land, 
in a country like this, where the farmers are almost all only tenants 
of the few great proprietors, is to their minds something like hold- 
ing a fee-simple to part of paradise. 

The morning yesterday was spent on horseback in examining the 
agriculture of the estate. The rich harvest-fields, extending over the 
broad Cambridgeshire plains, afford, at this season, a fine picture of 
the great productiveness of England. About a thousand acres are 
farmed by Lord H., and the rest let to tenants. I was glad to hear 
from him that he has endeavored, with great success, to abolish the 
enormous consumption of malt liquor among laborers of all classes 
here, by giving them only a very small allowance joined to a sum 
equal to the largest allowance on other estates, in the shape of an 
addition to their wages. He confirmed my previous impressions of 
the bad effects produced by this monstrous guzzling of beer by the 
working men of England ; a consumption actually astounding to one 
accustomed to the abstinent and equally hard working farmers of the 
United States.* 

Farming, here, is a vastly more scientific and carefully studied 
occupation than with us ; and the attention bestowed upon landed 
estates, (many of which yield a revenue of $50,000 or $60,000 a 
year, and some much more,) is, as you may suppose, one of no tri- 
fling moment. Hence the knowledge of practical agriculture, by 
the oNvners of many of these vast English estates, is of a very high 
order ; and I am glad, from considerable observation, to say that 
the relations between owner and tenant are often of the most con- 
siderate and liberal kind. No doubt the present free trade prices 

* At the celebrated farm of Mr. "W., in this county, his cellar contained, 
at the commencement of harvest, twenty-four hogsheads of beer; barely 
enough, as I was told, for the harvest labor — about nine pints per day to 
each man. There was nearly a strike among the workmen for ten pints ; 
indeed, a gallon per day is no very uncommon thing for a beer drinker in 
England ! 



A NOBLEMAN S SEAT 49o 

of corn make a hard market for many of the tenant farmers of Eng- 
land. Yet, as the interests of the landlord and tenant run in paral- 
lel lines, it is clear that rents must be modified accordingly. Upon 
this estate, this has been done most wisely and judiciously. The 
good understanding that exists between both parties is therefore very 
great ; as a proof of which, I will mention that the Earl gives a din- 
ner twice a year, to which all his tenants are in\'ited. At the last 
festival of this sort, he took occasion to speak publicly of the low 
prices of bread-stufis, and the complaint so frequently made of the 
high rents at which farms are still held. To meet the state of the 
times, he added, that he had, from time to time, altered the scale 
of his rents ; and had now resolved to make a still further reduction 
of a certain number of shillings per acre to all who would apply for 
the same after that day. He now mentioned to me, that although 
nearly two months had now elapsed, not a single application had 
been made ; and this, perhaps, solely because the tenants appreci- 
ated the justice and liberality with which the estate had been man- 
aged, and knew the free trade policy, where this is the case, falls as 
heavily on the landlords as on themselves. 

Nothing can well be more complete, of its kind, than this highest 
kind of country life in England. I leave out of the question now, 
of course, all republican reflections touching the social or political 
beaiing upon other classes. Taken by itself, it has been perfected 
here by the long enjo}Tnent of hereditary right, united to high cul- 
tivation and great natural taste for rural and home pleasures, till it 
is difficult to imagine any thing (except, perhaps, a little more sun- 
shine out of doors) that would add to the picture. In the first 
place, an Englishman's park, on one of these great estates, is a spe- 
cies of kingdom by itself — a vast territorial domain, created solely 
for his own enjoyment, and within the bounds of which his family 
and guests may ride, drive, walk, or indulge their tastes, without in 
the least interfering with any one, or being interfered with, by the 
presence of any of the rest of the world. In the next place, the cli- 
mate not only favors the production of the finest lawns and pleasure- 
grounds in the world, but promotes the out-of-door interest in, and 
enjoyment of them. Next, these great domestic establishments (so 
immense and complete that we have nothing in America with which 



496 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

to compare them) are still managed (owing to the exercise of the 
service and the division of labor) with an ease and simplicity qiiite 
incomprehensible to an American, who knows from experience how 
diflScult it is to keep a household of half a dozen domestics together, 
even in the older parts of the Union. Here, there are sixty ser- 
vants, and I have been in houses in England where there are above 
a hundred, and yet all moving with the quiet precision of a chrono- 
meter. There are few people in England, I think, who seem in- 
clined to say amen, to the doctrine that 

" Man wants but little here below." 

I would however be quite willing to subscribe to it, so far as re- 
gards one's domestic establishment in America, if, alas ! we could 
have "that little" — good! 

I must close my letter here, with a promise to give you some 
account of Chatsworth in my next, which stands, in some respects, 
afe the head of all English places. 



III. 

CHATSWORTH. 

[Mr. Downing's remarks upon introducing a friend's " Impressions of 
Chatswortb," in the Horticulturist for January, 1847, -will well precede his 
own letters from that place.] 

WHAT one would do if he were a Duke, and had half a million 
a year ? is a question which, if it could be audibly put by a 
magician or a fairy, as in the bygone days of wands and enchant- 
ments, would set all the restless and ambitious directly to air-castle- 
building. Visions of the enjoyment of great estates, grand palaces, 
galleries of pictures, richly stored libraries, stately gardens, and 
superb equipages, would no doubt quickly crowd upon the flushed 
imaginations of many even of our soberest readers. Each person 
would give an unlimited scope, in the ideal race of happiness, to his 
favorite hobby, which nothing but the actual trial would convince 
him that he could not ride better and more wisely than all the rest 
of his fellow-men. 

We have had placed in our hands some clever and graphic notes, 
of a visit to Chatsworth, the celebrated seat of the Duke of Devon- 
shire. This place, as a highly artistical country residence, is admit- 
ted to stand alone even in England, and therefore in the world. To 
save our readers the trouble of perplexing their own wits to conjec- 
ture what they would do, if they wei'e burdened or blessed with the 
expenditure of the best ducal revenue in Great Britain, we beg leave 
to refer them to the notes that follow. 

We may give a personal relish to the accovmt, by observing that 
32 



498 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

the Duke of Devonshire is a bachelor ; that it is a principle with 
him to expend the most of his enormous income on his estate, and 
that gardening is his passion. He is the President of the London 
Horticultural Society, where he is, among enthusiastic amateurs, the 
most enthusiastic among them all. He sends botanical collectors 
to the most distant and unexplored countries, in search of new plants 
at his own cost. He travels, with his head gardener, all over Eu- 
rope, to examine the finest conservatories, and returns home to build 
one larger and loftier than them all. He goes to Italy, to study the 
effect of a ruined, aqueduct, that he may copy it on a grand scale in 
the waterworks at his private country-place ; and he takes down a 
whole village near the borders of his park, in order to improve and 
rebuild it in the most tasteful, comfortable, and picturesque manner. 

But it is not only in gardening, that the Duke of Devonshire dis- 
plays his admirable taste. Chatsworth is not less remarkable for the 
treasures of art collected within its walls. Its picture galleries, its 
library, its hall of sculpture, its Egyptian antiquities, its stores of 
plate, each is so remarkable in its way, that it would make a repu- 
tation for any place of less note. In his equipage, though often 
simple enough, the Duke has an individuality of his own, and we 
remember reading a description by that excellent judge of such 
matters, Pi'ince Puckler Muskau, of the Duke's turn-out at Doncaster 
races — a coach with six horses and twelve outriders, which in point 
of taste and effect, eclipsed all competitors, even there. 

But this is of little moment to our readers, most of whom, 
doubtless, relish more their MayduJces^ than anecdotes of even the 
Royal Dukes themselves. But there is a certain satisfaction, even 
to the humble cultivator of a dozen trees or plants, or a little plat 
of ground, in feeling that his dearest hobby — gardening is also the 
favorite resource of one of the wealthiest and most cultivated Eng- 
Hsh nobles. It is, perhaps, doubtful whether the former does not 
gather with a stronger satisfaction, the few fruits and flowers so 
carefully watched and reared by his own hands, than the latter ex- 
periences in beholding the superb desserts of hot-house growth, 
which every day adorn his table, but which he does not know indi- 
vidually and by heart — which others have reared for him — thinned, 
watered, and shaded — watched the sunny cheek redden, and the 



CHATSWORTH. 499 

bloom deepen — without any of that strong personal interest which 
glads the heart of the possessor of a small, dearly-prized garden. He 
gains by the possession of the mighty whole, but he loses as much by 
losing the familiar interest in the inexhaustible little. Such is the 
divine nature of the principle of compensation ! 



August, 1850. 

Chatsworth, the magnificent seat of the Duke of Devonshire, 
has the unquestionable reputation of being the finest private country 
residence in the world. You will pardon rae, then, if I bestow a 
few more words on it, than the passing tourist is accustomed to do. 

I ought to preface my account of it by telling you that the pre- 
sent Duke, now about sixty, with an income equal to what passes for 
a very large fortune in America, has all his lifetime been remark- 
able for his fine taste, especially in gardening : and that this resi- 
dence has an immense advantage over most other English places, in 
being set down in the midst of picturesque Derbyshire, instead of 
an ordinary park level. In consequence of the latter circumstance, 
the highest art is contrasted and heightened by the fine setting of a 
higher nature. 

If you enter Chats woith, as most visitors do, by the Edensor 
gate, you will be arrested by a little village — Edensor itself; a 
lovely lane, bordered by cottages, just within the gate, that has been 
wholly built by the present Duke. It is quite a study, and is pre- 
cisely what everybody imagines the possibility of doing, and what 
no one but a king or a subject with a princely fortune, and a taste not 
always born with princes, could do. In short, it is such a village as 
a poet-architect would design, if it were as easy to make houses of 
solid materials as it is to draw them on paper. There may be thirty 
or forty cottages in all, and every one most tasteful in form and pro- 
portions, most admirably built, and set in its appropriate framework 
of trees and shrubbery, — making an ensemble such as I saw no- 
where else in England. There are dwellings in the Italian, Gothic, 
Norman, Swiss, and two or three more styles ; each as capital a 



600 LETTERS FKOM ENGLAND, 

study as you will find in any of the architectural woi'ks, with the 
advantage which tlie reality always has over its counterfeit. 

From this little village to Chatsworth House, or palace, is about 
two miles, through a park, which is a broad valley, say a couple of 
miles wide by half a dozen long. It is indeed just one of those 
valleys which our own Durand loves to paint in his ideal landscapes, 
backed by wooded hills and sylvan slopes, some three hundred or 
four hundred feet high, with a lovely English river — the Derwent — 
running like a silver cord through the emerald park, and grouped 
with noble drooping limes, oaks, and elms, that are scattered over 
its broad surface. After driving about a mile, the palace bursts upon 
your view — the broad valley park spread out below and before it — 
the richly wooded hill rising behind it — the superb Italian gardens 
lying around it — the whole, a palace in Arcadia. On the crest of 
the hill,, from the top of a picturesque tower, floats the flag which 
apprises you that the owner of all that you see on every side — the 
park of twelve miles circuit (filled with herds of the largest and most 
beautiful deer I have yet seen), valley, hills, and the little world 
which the horizon shuts in — is at home in his castle. 

The palace is a superb pile, extending in all some eight hundred 
feet. It is designed in the classical style, and is built of the finest 
material, — a stone of a rich golden brown tint, which harmonizes 
well with the rich setting of foliage, out of which it ]"ises. 

Cavendish. is the family name of the Duke of Devonshire, and 
this estate became the property of Sir W. Cavendish, in the time of 
Elizabeth. The main building was erected by the first Duke in 1702, 
and the stately wings, containing the picture and sculpture galleries, 
by the present Duke. Every portion, however, is in th'e finest pos- 
sible order and preservation ; and it would be diflScult for the stran 
ger to point out which part of the palace belongs to the eighteenth, 
and which to the nineteenth centuries. 

You enter the gilded gates at the fine portal at one end of the 
range, and drive along a court some distance, till you are set down 
at the main entrance door of the palace. The middle of the court 
is occupied by a marble statue of Orion, seated on the back of a 
dolphin, about wliich the waters of a fountain are constantly play- 
ing. From the chaste and beautiful entrance hall rises a broad 



CHATSWORTH. 501 

flight of stairs, which leads to the suite of state rooms, sculpture 
galbry, collection of pictures, etc. 

The state rooms — a magnificent suite of apartments, with win- 
dows composed each of one single plate of glass, and commanding 
the most exquisite views — are hung with tapestry, or the walls are 
covered with stamped leather, enriched with gilding. In these 
rooms are the matchless carvings in wood, by Gibbons, of which, 
like everybody else curious in such matters, I had heard much, but 
which fairly beggar all praise. No one can conceive carving so 
wonderfully beautiful and true as this. The groups of dead game 
hang from the walls with the death flutter in the wings of the birds, 
and a bit of lace ribbon, which ties one of the festoons, is — more 
delicate than lace itself The finest pictures of Raphael could not 
have astonished me so much as these matchless artistic carvings in 
wood. 

A very noble library, a fine collection of pictures, and the 
choicest sculpture gallery in England (over one hundred feet long, 
especially rich in the works of Canova, Thorwalsden, and Chantrey), 
a long corridor, completely lined with original sketches by the gTeat 
masters, and a very richly decorated private chapel, are among the 
show apartments of Chatsworth. 

So much of the palace as I have enumerated, along Avith all the 
out-of-door treasui-es of the domain, is generously thrown open to 
the public by the Duke ; and you may believe that the opportunity 
of gratifying their curiosity is not thrown away, when I tell you 
that upwards of 80,000 persons visited Chatsworth last year. Hav- 
ing heard this before I went there, I fancied the annoyance which 
all this publicity must give to the possessor and his guests. But 
when I saw the vast size of the house, and how completely distinct 
the rooms of the guests and the private apartments of the Duke are, 
from the portion seen by the public, I became aware how little 
inconvenience the proper inmates of the palace suffered by the relin- 
<]uishment of the show rooms. The private suite of drawing-rooms, 
appropriated to the guests at Chatsworth, is decorated and furnished 
in a far more chaste and simple style than the state rooms, though 
with the greatest refinement and elegance. Among these adornings, 
I observed a superb clock, and some very large vases of green mala- 



502 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

cbite, presented by the Emperor of Russia ; Landseer's original 
picture of Bolton Abbey, and that touching story of Belisarius — 
old, blind, and asking alms — told upon canvass by Murillo, so pow- 
erfully as to send a thrill through the dullest observer. 

In the ground floor, opening on a level with the Italian gardens, 
is the charming suite of apartments, occupied chiefly by the Duke 
when his guests are not numerous. Nothing can well be imagined 
more tasteful than these rooms, — a complete suite, beginning with 
a breakfast-room, and ending with the most select and beautiful of 
small libraries, and including cabinets of minerals, gems, pictures, 
etc. The whole had all that snugness and cosiness which is so ex- 
actly opposite to what one expects to find in a palace, and which 
gave me the index to a mind capable of seizing and enjoying the 
delights of both extremes of refined life. The completeness of 
Chatsworth House, as you will gather from what I have said, is 
that it contains under one roof suites of apartments for living in 
three different styles — that of the palace, the great country house, 
and the cottage ornee. With such a prodigality of space, you can 
easily see that the Duke can aff"ord, for the greater part of the year, 
to throw the palace proper, i. e., the state rooms, open to the enjoy- 
ment of ihe pubhc. 

The next morning after my arrival at Chatsworth, was one of 
unusual briUiancy. The air was soft, but the sunshine was that of 
our side of the Atlantic, rather than the mild and tempered gray of 
England. After breakfiist, and before making our exploration of 
the gardens and pleasure-grounds, the Duke had the kindness to 
direct the whole wealth of fountains and grandes eaux to be put in 
full play for the day, — a spectacle not usually seen ; as indeed the 
Emperor fountain is so powerful and so high that it is dangerous to 
play it, except when the atmosphere is calm. 

We enter the Italian gardens. And what are the Italian gar- 
dens ? you are ready to inquire. I will tell you. They are the 
series of broad terraces, on two or three levels, which suri-ound the 
{)alace, and which, containing half a dozen acres or more of highly 
dressed garden scenery, separate the pleasure-grounds and the house 
from the more sylvan and rural park. As the house is on a higher 
level than most of the valley, you lean over the massive Italian 



CHATSWORTH. 503 

balustrade of the terrace (all of that rich golden stone), and catch 
fine vistas of the park scenery below and beyond you". Of course, 
the Italian gardens are laid out in that symmetrical style which 
best accords with a grand mass of architecture, and are decorated 
with fine vases, statues, and fountains. A pretty effect is produced 
tiy avenues of Portugal laurels, grown with single stems and round 
ii-ads, like the orange-trees that always border the walks of the 
gardens of the continent ; and the Duke mentioned, in passing, that 
the Prince and Princess Borghese, who had been guests at Chats- 
worth but a few days before, had really mistaken them for orange- 
trees. But one point where the Italian gardens of Chalsworth must 
always be finer than any in Italy, is in the carpet of turf which 
forms their groundwork. The "velvet turf" of England is world- 
wide in its reputation ; but no one, till he sees it as it is here — 
short, tufted, elastic to the tread — can realize that the phrase is twt 
a metaphor. A surface of real dark green velvet of a dozen acres, 
would scarcely soothe the eye more, by its look of softness and 
smoothness, than the turf in the Italian gardens at Chatsworth. 

But the crowning glory in Chatsworth, is its fountains. In a 
country where water is always scarce, a situation that affords a^pretty 
stream, or a small artificial lake, is a rarity. But the whole of the 
hill, or mountain, that rises behind the house and pleasure-grounds, 
is full of springs, and has been made a vast reservoir, which is per- 
fectly under command, and fulfils its purposes of beauty as if it 
were under the spell of some enchanter. If you will suppose your- 
self standing with me on the upper terrace of the Italian gardens 
that morning, behind you rises up the palace, stately and magnifi- 
cent ; all along its front of eight hundred feet, those gardens extend 
— a carpet of velvet, divided by broad alleys, enriched by masses of 
the richest flowers, and enlivened by fountains of various form, 
sparkling in the sunshine like silver. Before you, also, stretches 
part of these gardens — a part in which the principal feature is a 
mirror-like lake, set in turf, and overhung by a noble avenue of 
drooping lime trees — beyond which you catch a vista of the distant 
hills. 

Out of this limpid sheet springs up a fountain, so high that, as 
you look upward and fairly hold your breath with astonishment 



604 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

you almost expect it, with its next leap, to reach the sky ; and yet, 
witli all this vast power and volume, it is so light, and airy, and beau- 
tiful, and it bursts at the top, and falls in such a superb storm of 
diamonds, that you will not be convinced that it is not a produc- 
tion of nature, like Niagara. This is the Emperor Fountain — the 
liighest in the world ; about the height, I should say, of Trinity 
Church spire.* It is only suffered to play on calm days, as the 
weight of the falling water, if blown aside by a high wind, would 
seriously damage the pleasure-grounds. 

As the eye turns to the left, the wooded hill, which forms the 
rich forest back-ground to this scene, seems to have run mad with 
cataracts. Far oft" am(_)ng the precipices, near its top, you see water- 
falls bursting out among the rocks, — now disappearing amid the 
thick foliage of the Avood, and then reappearing lower down, foam- 
ing with velocity, and plunging again into the dark woods. To- 
wards the base of the hill stands a circular water-temple, out of 
which the water rises. It gushes out as if from the hydrant of the 
water gods, and, running down a slope, falls at the back of the gar- 
dens down a long flight of very broad marble steps, that lead from 
the water-temple to the edge of the pleasure-grounds, so as to give 
the eftect of a waterfall of a hundi-ed or more feet high. This 
wealth of water, as if some river at the back of the mountain had 
broke loose, and, after wild pranks in the hills, had been forced into 
order and symmetry in the pleasure-grounds, gives almost the 
tumult and excitement of a freshet in the wilderness to this most 
exquisite combination of garden and natural scenery. 

Leaving the point — where you take in, without moving, all this 
magical landscape — you wander through flower gardens, and amid 
pleasure-grounds, till you reach a more wooded and natural looking 
paysage. The fountains, the carefully polished Italian gardens, are 
no longer in view. The path becomes wild, and, after a turn, you 
enter upon a scene the very opposite to all that I have been describ- 
ing. You take it for a rocky wildei-ness. The rocks are of \'St^i 
size, and indeed of all sizes ; with thickets of laurels, rhododen- 

* The height of the Emperor Fountain is 267 feet. The next highest 
fountains in tlie world, are one at Hesse Cassel, 190 feet; one at St. Cloud, 
160 feet; and the great jet at Versailles, 90 feet. 



CHATSWORTH. 605 

drons and azaleas growing among them, ivy and other vines climb- 
ing over them, and foot-paths winding through them. From the 
top of a rocky precipice, some thirty feet high, dashes down a 
waterfall, -which loses itself in a pretty meandering stream that 
steals away from the foot of the rock. Nothing can well look 
wilder or more natural than this spot ; and yet this spot, the " rock- 
garden," of six acres, has all been created. Every one of these 
rocks has been brought here — some of them from two or three miles 
away. It is just as wild a scene as one finds on the skirts -of some 
wooded limestone ridge in America. Though it was all made a few 
years ago, yet noAv that the trees and shrubs have had time to take 
forms of w'ild luxuriance, all traces of art are obliterated. The eye 
of the botanist only, detects that the masses of laurels are rare rho- 
dodendrons, and that beautiful azaleas of the Alps * make the un- 
derwood to the forest that surrounds it. 

You wish to go onward. We will leave the rock garden by 
this path, on the side opposite to that which we entered. No, that, 
you see, is impossible ; a huge rock, weighing fifty or sixty tons, 
exactly stops up the path and lies across it. Your compan- 
ion smiles at your perplexity, and with a single touch of his hand, 
the rock slowly turns on its centre, and the path is unobstructed ! 
There is no noise, and nothing visible to explain the mystery ; and 
when the rock has been as quietly turned back to its place, it looks 
so firm and solid upon its base, that you feel almost ceitain that 
either your muscles or the rocks themselves obey the spell of some 
unseen and supernatural wood-spirit. 

One of the greatest beauties at Chatsworth lies in the diversity 
of smface — the succession of hill and dale, which, especially in the 
pleasure-grounds, continually occure. This variation offers excel- 
lent opportunities for the production of a succession of scenes, now 
highly ornate and artistic, like the flower gardens, now romantic 
and picturesque, like the rocky valley. And as we continue our 
ramble, after entirely losing sight of the wild scene I have just de- 
scribed, we enter upon another still different, — a wide glade or 

* Azalea, or, v&ih&r. Rhododendron Mr sutum aud ferrugineum ; two beau- 
tiful sorts, perfectly hardy. 



506 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

opening, like an amphitheatre, in the midst of a fine grove of trees. 
An immense palace of glass rises before us. Its curved roof, spring- 
ing seventy feet high, gleams in the morning sun ; and you would 
be at a loss to conceive for what purpose this vast struc,ture was in- 
tended, did you not see as you approached, by the indistinct forms of 
the foliage, that it incloses another garden. This is the great con- 
servatory, which is three hundred feet long, and covers rather more 
than an acre of ground. Through its midst runs a broad road, 
over which the Duke and his guests occasionally drive in a carriage 
and four. All the riches of the tropics are grown here, planted 
in the soil, as if in their native climate ; and a series of hot-water 
pipes maintain, perpetually, the temperature of Cuba in the heart of 
Derbyshire. The surface is not entirely level, but there are rocky 
hills and steep walks winding over them ; and lofty as the roof is, 
some of the palms of South America have already nearl}^ reached 
the glass. From the branches and trunks of many of the largest, 
hang curious air plants, brilliant, and apparently as little fixed to 
one spot as summer butterflies. 

But I shall never bring this letter to a close, if I dwell even 
slightly upon any interesting scene in detail. I must mention, how- 
ever, in passing, the arboretum — perhaps a mile long — planted with 
the rarest trees, and every day becoming richer and more interest- 
ing to the botanist and the landscape gardener. The trees arc 
neither set in formal lines, nor grouped in a single scene, but are 
scattered along a picturesque drive, with space enough for each to 
develope its natural habit of growth. There -are some veiy grace- 
ful Deodar cedars here, and a great many araucarias. But the 
two most striking and superb trees, which I nowhere else saw half 
so large and in such perfection, were Douglass' fir {Abies Doug- 
lassi), and the noble fir {Abies nobilis). They are two of the mag- 
nificent evergreens of California and Oregon, discovered by Doug- 
lass, and brought to England about eighteen years ago. These two 
specimens are now about thirty-five feet high, extremely elegant in 
their proportions, as well as beautiful in shape and color. I cannot 
describe them, briefly, so well as by comparing the first to a gi- 
gantic and superb balsam fir, with for larger leaves, a luxuriance 
and freedom always wanting in the balsam, together with the 



CHATSWORTH. 507 

richest dark bronze-green foliage ; and the latter to the finest droop- 
ing Norway spruce, equally multiplied in the scale of luxuriance 
and grace. They grow upon a rocky bank, overhanging a pool of 
clear water, and look as if thoroughly at home, on the slope of a 
hill-side in Oregon. 

The arboretum walk forms a complete collection of all the 
hardy trees that will grow out of doors at Chatsworth, with space 
for planting every new species as it may be introduced into Great 
Britain. A fine effect is produced by grafting the weeping ash 
into the top of a common ash tree with a tall trunk thirty feet high, 
whence it falls on all sides more gracefully and prettily than when 
grafted low ; a hint that I laid up for easy practice at home. 

A mile further on, and you reach the tower, on the hill top, 
where the eye commands the whole of Chatsworth valley, — such a 
picture of palace and pleasure-ground, park and forest scenery as 
can be found, perhaps, nowhere else in the circle of the planet. 

After a long exploration — after exhausting all the well-bred ex- 
pressions of enthusiasm in my vocabulary, and imagining that it was 
impossible that landscape gardening, and embellishment, and park 
scenery, and pleasure-ground decoration, could farther go — the 
Duke reminded me that I had neither seen the kitchen gardens, the 
great peach-tree, nor the famous new water lily — the Victoria Regia ; 
and that Mr. Paxton, his able chef, would never forgive a neglect of so 
important a feature in a place. As the gardens where all these new 
wonders lay, were quite on the opposite side of the park, we gladly 
took to the carriage after our industrious morning's ramble. 

I shall not attempt to describe these large and complete fruit and 
forcing gardens. But the peach-tree of Chatsworth has not, to my 
recollection, been described, though it deserves to be as famous as 
the grape-vine of Hampton Court. It is the more wonderful, be- 
cause, as you know, peach-trees do not grow in England in orchards 
of five hundred acres, like those of the Reybolds, in Delaware ; but 
are only seen upon walls, or imder glass. Yet I assure you, our 
fi'iend R.'s eyes, accustomed as they are to peach blossoms by the 
mile, would have dilated at the sight of this monster tree, occupy 
ing a glass house by itself, and extending over a trellis — I should 
say a hundred feet long. I inquired about the product of this tree, 



,508 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

and when the number was mentioned, I imagined His Grace de- 
tected a sliglit smile of incredulity ; for he begged Mr. Paxton to 
copy for me, and subscribe his name to, the accurate statistics of the 
present crop. I send it to you in a note,* with the addition, that 
the fruit was of the variety known as the Royal George, very large, 
and finer flavored than 1 had befoi-e tasted from trees gi-own under 
glass. The whole trellis from one end to the other, was most ad- 
mirably clothed — not a vacant place to be found. 

Of the superb water lily, lately discovered in Brazil, and named 
Victoria Jier/ia, in honor of the Queen, you have already published 
an account. It has grown and bloomed here more perfectly than 
elsewhere ; though there are, also, good specimens at the Duke of 
Northumberland's, and at Kew. The finest plant here occupies a 
house built specially for it, 60 by 45 feet, inclosing a small pond 33 
feet in diameter for it to grow in. The plant is, unquestionably, 
the most magnificent aquatic known. The huge circular leaves, 4 
to 5 feet across, are like great umbrellas in size ; and the blossoms, as 
large as a man's hat — pure white, tipped with crimson — float upon 
the surface with a veiy queenly dignity, as if ready to command 
admiration. A small frame or board was placed on one of the 
leaves, merely in order to divide the weight equally as it floated ; 
and it upheld the weight of a man readily. Some seeds were pre- 
sented to me of this beautiful floral amazon before I left Chatsworth ; 
but as it requires the tank to be heated to a temperature of 85°, 
and the water kept constantly in motion by a small wheel, I fear I 
shall not readily find an amateur in the United States who will be 
inclined to indulge a taste for so expensive a floral fancy. 

The kitchen and forcing grounds are on an iinmense scale, and 
some handsome fruit was being packed to go as a present to the 
Queen. The pines were usually large and fine ; and the Duke re- 
marked that Mr. Paxton has reduced the cost of producing them 
two-thii-ds, since he has had charge of that department, — some ten 
or twelve years. 

* " Memorandum of Peaches, borne by the Great Peach Tree at Chats- 
worth, in 1850.— rFruit thinned out at various times before maturity, 7,801 ; 
do. left to ripen, 926 ; total crop, 8,727. 

Jos. Paxton." 



CHATSWORTH. 509 

If, after this lengthy description, I have almost wholly failed to 
give you an idea of Chatsworth, it is not wholly because my pen is 
not equal to the task. Something must be allowed for the difficulty 
of presenting to you any adequate notion of the variety, richness, 
and completeness of an estate, where you may spend many days 
with new objects of interest and beauty constantly before you ; ob- 
jects which, only to enumerate, would be presenting you with dry 
catalogues, instead of living pictures, brilliant and varying as those 
of the kaleidoscope. 

And, I think I hear you say, this is all for the pride and pleasure 
of a single individual ! All this is done to minister to his happiness. 
Not entirely. The Duke of Devonshire has the reputation, very 
deservedly, I should think, of being second to no man in England 
for his benevolence, kind-heartedness and liberality. Certainly, I 
think I may safely say, that Chatsworth shows more refined taste, 
joined to magnificence, both externally and internally, than any 
place I have ever seen. When one sees how many persons are con- 
stantly employed in the various works of improvement on this single 
estate, and how cheerfully the whole is thrown open to the study 
and enjoyment of thousands and tens of thousands annually, one 
cannot but concede a liberal share of admiration and thanks to a 
nobleman who might follow the example of many others, and make 
his home his closed castle; but who prefers, on the other hand, to 
open, like a national picture gallery, this magnificent specimen of 
landscape gardening and architecture, on which his fine taste and 
ample fortune have been lavished for half a century. One has only 
to visit Windsor and Buckingham Palace after Chatsworth, to see 
the difference between a noble and pure taste, and a royal want of 
it. The one may serve to educate and reform the world. The ut- 
most that the other can do, is to dazzle and astonish those who can- 
not recognize real beauty or excellence in art. 



IV. 



ENGLISH TRAVELLING: HADDON HALL: MATLOCK: 
THE DERBY ARBORETUM: BOTANIC GARDEN IN 
REGENT'S PARK. 

August, 1850. 

DERBYSHIRE (you remember you left me at Chatsworth), is so 
picturesque a countrj^ that I drove about among its hills and 
valleys with the luxury of good roads and the easiest of private car- 
riages. It is, indeed, only in this way that England can be seen or 
understood. To dash through such a country as this, where the de- 
tails are all worked up into such perfect finish, is like going through 
a gallery of cabinet pictures at the speed of Capt. Barclay, or some 
" crack pedestrian," who performs a thousand miles in a thousand 
hours. Here is indeed a hilly country, wheje you get a glimpse of 
something new and interesting at every turn : and yet the roads are 
by no means those we are accustomed to see in such a district, but 
smooth and hard as a Macadam can make them. It would, how- 
ever, amuse one of our expert Alleghany stage-drivers, who goes 
down a five mile mountain on a full run, to see an English coach- 
man lock his wheels on such smooth and easy grades as these, 
among the Derbyshire hills. A proposal of such feats to an Eng- 
lish driver as are performed daily in the Alleghanies, with the most 
perfect success and nonchalance, would be received by him with the 
same belief in your sanity, as if you' should ask him to oblige you 
by swallowing the cupola of St. Paul's. On the other hand, the 
perfect neatness of dress (especially in snowy linen, and spotless 
white-top boots), the obliging manners, and the careful and rapid 



H ADDON HALL. 511 

driving (on those level roads) of a John Bull who is bred to hold 
the reins, would be a stranger revelation to one of our uncouth look- 
ing drivers, than an explanation of the whole art of governing a 
monarchy. 

These Derbyshire hills are, in some parts, covered with wood, 
and in others entirely bare, or rather only covered with grass, — af- 
fording j)asture to large flocks of sheep. As I drove amid long 
slopes and rounded summits, some 200 or 300 feet high, I was 
struck with the exquisite purple hue, like the bloom on -a plum, 
with which some of the hill-sides were suffused in the soft afternoon 
light. A little nearer approach enables one to solve the riddle of 
the mysterious color. The whole hill-side was thickly covered 
with purple heather, in full bloom, which, at a distance, gave it the 
seeming of having been dipped in some delicate dye. I cannot tell 
you how these hills, and the wild wastes and downs of England, 
covered with the delicate bells of the heath, affected me when I 
first saw them. When you remember, that with all the forest and 
meadow richness of America, not a single heath grows wild from 
one end of the country to the other, and that we scarcely know the 
plant, except as a delicate and cherished green-house exotic — a plant 
which every English poet has embalmed in his verse, and which is 
the very emblem of wild, airy fi-eshness — you may believe me, when 
I tell you that a million, spent in gardens imder glass, could not 
have given me the same exquisite delight, which I experienced in 
running over, plucking, and feasting my eyes upon these acres of 
wild heather. There are half a dozen sj^ecies, with different shades 
of color — white, pink, pale and deep purple ; but the latter is the 
most beautiful, as well as the most common. 

Haddon Hall. — Next to Chatsworth, Haddon Hall is the most 
noted locality in Derbyshire. As the two places are but a few. 
miles apart, they form the best possible contrast, — Chatsworth being 
one of the most finished specimens of the luxury, refinement, and 
grandeur of modern England, as Haddon is of the domestic abodes 
and habits of an English nobleman two hundred years ago. 

Haddon Hall gives, perhaps, the best idea that may be gathered 
any where in this country, of the ancient baronial residence, exactly 
as it was. No part of this large castellated pile (which is finely 



512 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

situated on the slope of a wooded hill), is of later date than the 
sixteenth century. Its history is that of the Vernon family, who 
built and inhabited it for more than three centuries. Sir George 
Vernon, the last male heir, lived here in the time of Elizabeth ; 
and his magnificent hospitality and great establishment gave him 
the name of the " king of the Peak." 

What struck me at Iladdon was the realness and the rudeness 
of those halls of ancient grandeur. There is not one alteration to 
suit more modern tastes — not a single latter-day piece of furniture — 
nothing, in short, that does not remind you of the solidly material 
difference between ancient and modern times. Vast chimney- 
pieces, with huge fire-dogs in them, for burning wood, large halls, 
with open timber roofs, instead of ceilings, wainscot covered with 
tattered arras, which hung loosely over secret panelled doors in the 
walls, rude and massive steps to the staircases, and clumsy, though 
strong bolts and hasps to the doors, — all these, with many rude 
utensils, show that strength, and not elegance, stamped its charac- 
ter upon the domestic life, even of the great nobles in those days. 
Hei'e is a house which held accommodation for upwards of four- 
scoi-e servants, in all the luxury of the time ; and yet, so great has 
been the progress of civilization, that many of our working men 
would doubtless think the best accommodation of those d;iys but 
rough apartments to live in. The seats in the kitchen are of stone ; 
and there must have been cold draughts in these great barn-like 
halls, that would make modern effeminacy's teeth chatter. 

There is a singular charm about such a veritable antique castle 
as this, which perhaps an American feels more strongly than an 
Englishman. It gives one the feeling of a conversation with the 
spirits of antiquity ; and it has for us the additional piquancy, 
growing out of the fact, that we come from a land where such 
spirits are wholly unrecognized and unknown. To feel that in this 
rude dining-hall the best civilization of the time flourished, and 
mighty barons, ladies, and vassals feasted and revelled, long before 
the first settlement was made at Jamestown, is very much like being 
invited to smoke a cigar with Sir Walter Raleigh, or go to the 
Globe playhouse with Manager Shakspeare. 

The terraced garden, too, is quaint and " old-timey." The special 



MATLOCK. 513 

point of interest is " Dorothy Vernon's Walk ; " for it has both ro- 
mance and reahty about it. Dorothy was the beautiful daughter 
and heiress of the last Vernon. The son of the first Duke of Rut- 
laud fell so violently in love with her, when she was but eighteen, 
that (his suit not being favored by her father) he lived some time 
in the woods of Haddon, disguised as a gamekeeper ; and finally 
(during a masked ball), eloped with the fair Dorothy, heiress of 
Haddon, through the door from the long gallery, which leads down 
to this walk. 

And this gives me the opportunity to say, that this marriage, of 
course, brought Haddon Hall into the family of the Dukes of Rut- 
land, who, for a time, inhabited it in great state ; but about a hun- 
dred years ago abandoned it for their more modern residence — 
Belvoir Castle. Haddon Hall is, however, though uninhabited, 
wisely prevented from falling into cotnplete decay by the present 
Duke of Rutland, and is open to the inspection of visitors at all 
times. 

Matlock, considered the most picturesque spot in Derbyshire, is 
in the ordinaiy route of travellers, but would, I think, disappoint 
any one accustomed to the Hudson ; as would, indeed, any scenery 
in England (I will except Wales) in point of picturesqueness. The 
village of Matlock Bath is a watering-place, nestled in a pretty, 
quiet dale, surrounded by rocky cliff's some 200 or 300 feet high. 
Excellent walks, charmingly laid out and well kept, sparry caverns, 
petrifying wells, with mineral springs, make up the attractions of 
this rural neighborhood. The real beauty of Matlock, to my eyes — 
and it is the essentially English feature — is in the luxuriance of the 
vines and shrubbery that clamber over and enwreath every object — 
natural, artificial, and picturesque. A bare, rocky bank, unless it 
has great magnitude or grandeur of outline, is hard and repulsive. 
But let that same bank be covered with rich masses of ivy, and 
overhung with verdure of luxuriant shrubs and trees, and what was 
ugly and harsh is transformed into something exceedingly beautiful. 
In this respect, both climate and culture conspire to make English 
scenery of this character very captivating. The ivy springs up and 
grows readily any whei-e ; and the people, with an instinctive feel- 
ing for rural expression, encourage this and other drapery, wherever 
33 



514 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

it is becoming. Strip away fi-oin the English cottages, that are so 
much admired, the vines that cover, and the shrubbery that em- 
bowers them, and they would look as bald and commonplace as the 
most ordinary rural dwellings in America. The only diflerence 
would be, that an English cottage, stripped of drapery, would show 
plain brick walls, and tile or thatch roof — ours, wooden clap-board- 
ing and shingles. Architecturally, however, the English cottages — 
four-fifths of them — are no better than our own ; but they are so 
affectionately embosomed in foliage, that they toucli the heart of 
the traveller more than the designs of Palladio would, if they bor- 
dered the lanes and road-sides. 

As no decoration is so cheap as vines, I was one day expressing 
my regret to an English landscape-gardener, that the vij was 
neither a native of America, nor would it thrive in the northern 
States, without considerable care. "You Americans are an un- 
grateful people," said he ; " look at that vine, clambering over yon- 
der building, by the side of the ivy. It is, as you see, more luxuri- 
ant, more rapid in growth, and a livelier green than our ivy. It is 
true, it has neither the associations nor the evergreen habit of the 
ivy ; but we think it quite as beautiful for the purpose of covering 
walls and draping cottages." The plant he eiilogized was the Vir- 
ginia Creeper {^Ampelopsis quijiquefolia), an old favorite of mine, 
and which we are just beginning rightly to estimate at home as it 
deserves.* 

The Derby Arboretum. — Derby is an interesting old town, 
and I passed a day there with much satisfaction. What I particu- 
larly wished to see, however, was the public garden or pleasure- 

* Nothing can be more brilliant, as your readers well know, than the 
Virginia Creeper in the autumn woods at home, where it frequently climbs 
up the leading stem of some evergreen, and shines, in its autumnal glory, 
like foliage of fire, through the dark foliage of a cedar or a hemlock. It 
grows in almost every part of the country, and will cling to walls or wood- 
work, like the ivy, without any artificial aid. "We believe this vine is less 
frequently planted than it would be, from many persons confounding it 
with the- poison sumac vine, which a little resembles it. The Virginia 
Creeper is, however, perfectly harmless, and may be easily known from the 
poison vine, by the latter beai-iug only three leaflets to a leaf, while the 
Virginia CreejX'r has five leaflets. 



THE DERBY ARBORETUM. 515 

grounds, called the Derby Arboretum. It interested me in three 
ways : first, as having been especially formed for, and presented to 
the inhabitants of the town by their member of Parliament, Joseph 
Strutt, Esq., a wealthy silk manufacturer here ; 'then, as containing 
a specimen of most of the hardy trees that will grow in Britain ; 
and lastly, as having been laid out by the late Mr. Loudon. 

As a public garden — the gift of a single individual — it is cer- 
tainly a most noble bequest. The area is about eleven acres, and is 
laid out so as to appear much larger, — the boundaries concealed by 
plantations, etc. There are neat and tasteful entrance lodges, with 
public rooms for the use of visitors (where a lunch is provided, at 
the bare cost of the provisions), and where books of reference are 
kept ; so that any person who wishes to pursue the study of trees, 
can, with the aid of the specimens in the garden, quickly become 
familiar with the whole history of every known species. During 
five days in the week, these grounds are open to all persons without 
charge ; and on the other two days, the admission fee is sixpence 
— merely enough to keep the place in good condition. 

The grounds were in beautiful order, and are evidently much 
enjoyed, not only by the good people of Derby, but by strangers, 
and visitoi's from the neighborhood. I met numbers of young peo- 
ple strolling about and enjoying the promenade, plenty of nurses and 
children gathering health and strength in the fresh air, and, now 
and then, saw an amateur carefully reading the labels of the various 
trees and shrubs, and making notes in his memorandum-book — 
• doubtless, with a view to the improvement of his own grounds. 
Every tree or plant is conspicuously marked with a printed label 
(a kind of brick set in the gi-ound at the foot of the tree or shrub, 
with the name under a piece of glass, sunk in a panel upon the top 
of the brick) ; and this label contains the common name of the plant, 
the botanical name, its native country, the year of its introduction 
(if not a native), and the height to which it grows. The most per- 
fect novice in trees, can thus, by walking round the arboretum, ob- 
tain in a short time a very considerable knowledge of the hardy 
Sylva, while the arboriculturist can solve many a knotty point, by 
looking at the trees and plants themselves, which no amount of 
study, without the living specimen, would settle. Then the whole 



516 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

collection, consisting of about u thousand diftcrent species and vai'ie- 
ties, is arranged according to the natural system, so that The Ix^ta- 
nist may study classification, as well as structure and growth, with 
the whole clearly before his eyes. As the great point is to show 
the natural character of the different trees and shrubs, they are all 
planted quite separately, and allowed room to grow on all sides ; 
and no pruning which would prevent the natural development of 
the habits of the tree or shrub, is permitted. 

The whole arboretum was laid out and planted ten years ago — 
in 1840; so that, of course, one can, now, very well judge of its 
value and its effects. 

That it is, and will be, one of the most useful and instructive 
public gardens in the world, there can be no doubt; for it certainly 
combines the greatest possible amount of instruction, with a great 
deal of pleasure for all classes, and especially the working classes. 
That it may appeal largely to the sympathies of the latter, even to 
those to whom all trees are alike, there is a fine piece of smooth 
lawn (added, I think, to the original eleven acres), expressly used as 
a skittle ground, — a favorite English game with ball ; at which 
numbers of men and boys were playing while I was there. 

As regards taste, I do not hesitate to confess my disappointment. 
There is no other beauty in these grounds, than what grows out of 
the entire surface being covered with grass, neatly mown, with 
broad straight walks through the central portions, and a seiies of 
narrower covered walks, making a connected circuit of the whole. 
The peculiarity of the design belongs to the surface of the ground. 
This was naturally a level ; but in order to produce the gi'eatest pos- 
sible intricacy and variety, in a limited space, it was thrown up, 
here and there, into ridges from six to ten feet high. These ridges 
are not abrupt, but gentle ; and the walks are led between them, so 
that even when there are no intervening trees and shrubs, you could 
not easily see a person in one walk from another one parallel to it, 
though only twenty or thirty feet oft". If these ridges, or undula- 
tions in the surface, bad been cleverly planted with gi-oups and 
masses of trees and shrubs, the effect would have been very good ; 
but dotted as they are with scattered single trees and shrubs, the re- 
sult is a little harsh, with neither the ease of nature nor the symnie- 



THE DERBY ARBORETUM. 617 

try of art. If one looks at the Derby arboretum, therefore, as an 
example of Mr. Loudon's landscape-gardening, one would not get a 
high idea of his taste. But I believe this would not be judging him 
fairly, as I think he intended this place as a garden for instructing 
the British public in arboriculture, even more than as a specimen 
of public pleasure-grounds. And every one who is familiar witli 
botanical gardens, knows how ugly they generally are, from tlie 
very plain reason, thai instead of planting only beautiful objects, 
they must necessarily contain a great mass of species, very uninter- 
esting except to the scientific student. 

I noticed one tree that was entirely new to me, and which I am 
sure will be a valuable acquisition to om- pleasure-grounds at home. 
It is the " hoary Pyrus," from Nepaul, Pyrus vestita, — a very strik- 
ing tree, in its large foliage, which is dark green above, and hoary 
white below. It is very vigorous and hardy ; the specimen about 
thirty feet high. 

The Derby arboretum, altogether, as I learned there, cost above 
$50,000. Considered as the creation and bequest of a private citi- 
zen to his townsmen (and to the country at large), it is certainly a 
magnificent donation. When one remembers what a gratification 
is afforded to the numerous inhabitants of a large town, ybr all time 
to come, by this arboretum, what a refreshment after a day's labor 
for those who have no garden of their own, what an instructive 
walk — every year increasing in extent — even for those who have, 
what an attraction to strangers, and what a source of pride to the 
citizens to whom it especially belongs, one cannot but look upon 
Mr. Strutt's gift, as something done in the largest spirit of philan- 
thropy. Quite as considerable sums have often been given by mer- 
chants in my own country, to found hospitals and asylums for the 
diseased in mind and body. Perhaps it may not be long before 
some one of them will follow the example of Mr. Strutt, and form a 
public garden or park, as such places should be formed, and present 
it to one of our large cities or towns, now so much in need of it. 
Would it not keep his memory more lov'ingly fresh in the minds of 
his fellow-men, and their descendants, than any other bequest it is 
possible to conceive ? 

The Botanic Garden in Regent's Park. — As a pendant to 



(518 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

this sketch of the arboretum at Derby, let me give you an outline 
of another garden in the midst of the Regent's Park, at the west end 
of London. It cannot, perhaps, be strictly called a public garden ; 
it is, more properly, a subscription garden, as it was made, and is 
maintained, by about sixteen hundred members, who either pay 
twenty guineas at the outset, or two guineas a year. The privileges 
they have, are the free enjoyment of the grounds, conservatories, etc., 
at all times, and the admission of their fi-iends (not more than two 
per day) by tickets. As there is no other way of getting admis- 
sion (even the fee, that is so all-potent in most cases, does not pre- 
vail here), of course, very few strangers ever see this garden — the 
best worth seeing, of its kind, perhaps, in all Europe. As I had, 
fortunately, been one of the honorary members for some years, I 
was glad to claim my rights, soon after my arrival in London. 

The scene, as you enter the grounds, is extremely beautiful and 
striking, especially when you recall (what, without an eflbrt, you 
would certainly forget) that you are in the midst of a vast city ; or, 
at the most, barely on the borders of it. Here is a large velvet 
lawn, admirably kept, the surface gently undulating, and stretching 
away indefinitely (to all appearance) on either side, losing itself 
amid belts and groups and masses of shrubs and trees, with winding 
walks stealing off, here and there, in the most inviting manner, to 
the right and left. At the end of the broad walk, at the farther 
side of tlie great lawn, which forms the central feature to the gar- 
den, stands a noble conservatory of immense size, with lofty curved 
roof; and on either side of it are small hot-houses, full of all the 
novelties of the day, and all the treasures of the exotic Flora. 

There cannot be a finer contrast, in point of tasteful arrangement 
and beauty of effect, than that which this garden presents to the 
arboretum at Derby. They were both formed about the same time, 
and the extent is not greatly different ; the whole area of this place 
being only eighteen acres.* Here, the utmost beauty, variety, and 
interest are concentrated within these moderate limits. As you 
enter, you are struck by the breadth and extent of the broad velvet 

* It gains greatly by being in the midst of the Regent's Park, with its 
boundariea concealed by thickets, over which the trees in the park make a 
pleasingly indefinite background. 



THE BOTANIC GARDEN IN KEGENx's PARK. 519 

lawn. As you ramble about the finely planted and well grown 
walks, which form the border to this lawn — now quite concealed 
from all observation in a thicket of foliage — now emerging upon 
some pretty garden vista, and again opening upon a little separate 
nook, devoted to some single kind of culture, as groups of rhodo- 
dendrons, or American plants, or a flower garden set in turf, 
or a )"ock-work filled wifch curious alpines — you imagine you 
have been introduced into <»6ome pleasure-gi-ounds of fifty acres, 
instead of the moderate co&pass of less than twenty. • The sur- 
face is most gracefully undulating, so as to give that play of light 
and shade — those sunny smiles, so pleasant in a lawn, and to pre- 
vent your eye from ranging over too - large a sweep at one time ; 
and though this variation of surface was, ^.s I was told, wholly the 
work of art when the grounds were laid out, it has none of the stiff 
and hard look of the surface in the arboretum at Derby, but is 
charmingly like the most pleasing bits of natural flowing surface. I 
cannot, therefore, but believe that Mr. Marnock, the able landscape 
gardener who laid out this place, convinced me by this single speci- 
men, that he is a man of great skill and refined taste in his art. I 
saw no new place abroad laid out in a more entirely satisfactory 
manner. 

In order to give the garden a character and purpose, beyond that 
of mere pleasm-e-gTounds (although enjoyment of it in the latter 
sense is the main object), a botanical aiTangement and a medical 
arrangement of plants, are both very Avell carried out here — I believe 
for the use of the students of the Loudon University- But instead 
of bringing these scientific arrangements into the pleasure-ground 
portion, which meets the eye of the ordinary visitor of the garden, 
they are kept in one of the side scenes — quite in the background ; 
so that though they add greatly to the interest, and general extent 
of the garden when sought for, they do not mar the beauty or 
elegance of its conspicuous outlines. 

In the great conservatory, though the larger number of the 
plants were out in their summer quarters, the whole effect was still 
extremely pleasing, from the noble specimens of certain showy sum- 
mer-blooming plants, growing here and there throughout the open 
space, which was elsewhere turned into a broad gravel walk. Th-jse 



520 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

were either gigantic specimens of hi'ugmansias, loaded with their 
great white trumpet flowers — enormous scarlet geraniums, trained as 
pyramids, ten feet high, and brilliant with bloom — rich passifloras, 
and other vines,, climbing up the rafters, or very finely grown exotics, 
in tubs or lai'ge pots. 

Among the latter, I noticed with astonkhment, fuchsias, grown 
like standard roses to a wonderful size, running up with a perfectly 
straight stem sixteen feet high, and branching into a fine spreading 
or depending head of foliage, studded at every point with their 
graceful ear-drops. Fuchsia corrallina, among several species, was 
much the finest, treated in this way, — its luxuriant dark foliage, and 
deep crimson-purple flowers being quite beautiful. 

I saw here two rare plants, which will, I think, be very fine de- 
corations to our gardens in summer. The first is Hahrothamnus 
elegans ; a plant from Mexico, which, it is thought, may stand the 
winter here.* It was planted in the ground here, and trained to a 
pillar some ten or twelve feet high. The end of every branch was 
loaded with clusters of fine dark pink flowers (of the tint of a ripe 
Antwerp raspberry) ; and I was told it blooms without interruption 
from spring to winter. The size, color, and profusion of the blossoms 
are striking, and the whole plant is extremely showy. The second 
favorite is the Oestrum aurantiacum ; a greenhouse shrub, lately in 
troduced from Guatemala. It grows six or eight feet high, with fine 
luxuriant shoots, and is loaded all summCr with rich clusters of 
golden huff blossoms — very ornamental. Both these plants made 
a grand display here in the conservatory, planted in the ground and 
trained to the columns ; but if I am not greatly mistaken, both will 
thrive equally well in the United States, if turned out in the open 
border, and trained up to stakes like the dahlia, — the roots being 
taken up and housed in winter. 

The society of subscribers to whom this garden belongs, have 
two or three horticultural shows in, the gi'ounds, every year, which 
are amonw the most brilliant thino-s of the kind on this side of the 
Atlantic. On these occasidns, the grounds are open to any one who 
chooses to purchase tickets, and are thronged by thousands of visit- 

* I think Mr. Buist lias introduced tliis fine plant, and liaa it in liis nur- 
sery. 



THE BOTANIC GARDEN IN REGENt's PARK. 521 

ors. The display of fruits and flowers takes place in large tents 
and marquees, pitched on the lawn, and bands of music perform in 
the gardens. All the elite of the West End of London are here ; for 
in London, horticultural shows are even more fashionable than the 
opera ; and a gayer or more beautiful sight is not easily found. At 
the last festival of this sort, the great novelty was a magnificent plat, 
or garden of rhododendrons, of all coloi's ; the plants, in full bloom, 
were lai-ge and finely -grown specimens, sent beforehand from various 
nursery gardens fifty or one hundred miles off, planted here in a 
scene by themselves, where they bloomed in the same perfection as 
if they had grown here for a dozen years. 

I' was exceedingly gratified with this subscription garden, and 
examined it in all its details with great attention. In its tasteful 
arrangement, its moderate extent, its management and its position, it 
aflForded the finest possible type for a similar establish tnent near one 
of our largest cities. Here are eighteen acres of the most exquisite 
lawn, pleasure-grounds, and conservatory, wholly created and main- 
tained by sixteen hundred individuals, and enjoyed by, perhaps, five 
or six thousand persons more — their friends at all times. Here is a 
fine example of the art of landscape-gardening, which, if it were 
near New-York, Philadelphia, or Boston, so that it could be seen 
by those who are anxious to learn, would have a great influence on 
the taste of the country in ornamentel gardening ; here is the most 
perfect exhibition ground, for the shows of a horticultural society, 
that can be imagined or devised ; and here is a scientific arrange- 
ment of plants, for the study of botanical and medical classesj^ — the 
living plants arranged accoixling to the best system. Half the money 
which has been paid annually into the credit account of the ceme- 
teries of Greenwood, Mount Auburn, or Laurel Hill, would keep up 
in the very highest condition (as this garden is kept), one like it in 
the neighborhood of any of our cities. And the precincts of the 
Elysian fields, near New-York — Brookline, near Boston — on the 
banks of the Wissahicon, near Philadelphia, would be as fine loca- 
lities for such subscription gardens as Regent's Park is for London. 
If our citizens, who have the money, could come here and see what 
it will do, expended in this way, I am sure they would not hesitate 
to subscribe the " needful." 



V. 

THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 

August, 1850. 

FOUR days in the Isle of Wight : — the weather, the cHmate, 
and the scenery, all delightful. The Island itself, about fifteen 
miles long, is England in miniature — with its hedges, green lawns, 
soft-tufted verdure — now and then a great house, and plenty of 
ornee cottages. In some respects it fell below, but in many, fully 
equalled my expectations. If you think of it as the " Garden of 
England," it will disappoint you, for there are counties in England 
— for example, Warwickshire — better cultivated, and more soignee, 
than this spot. A considerable portion of the Island — especially 
the western end, is neither cultivated fields nor gardens, but broad 
downs and high bluft's. I should say that you would get the best 
idea of the Isle of Wight, without seeing it, by imagining it com- 
posed- partly of Nahant, and partly of Brookline — near Boston — 
the prettiest rural nest of cottage villas in America. The bare grass 
slopes and bluffs of Nahant, will correspond to the western part of 
the Isle of Wight, while the suburbs of Boston, that I have men- 
tioned, are a very ftiir offset to the more decorated and cultivated 
cottages and grounds of the eastern and southern portions. 

You cross from Southampton to the Island, in rather less than 
an hour, by one of the small mail steamers plying here. The 
towns of East and West Cowes, where you land, as well as Ryde, 
which is a few miles further, have quite a gay appearance at this 
season of the year, from the harbors being filled with the pretty 
vessels of the various yacht clubs, that hold their regattas here-7- 



THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 523 

and the accommodation at tlie liotels is, for the time at least, brought 
up to the style and prices which the titled yachtmen naturally be- 
get. The flag of the admiral of this fancy fleet, the Earl of Yar- 
borough, floated from the mast of his fast-looking vessel, and a va- 
riety of craft, of all sizes, lying about her, gave the whole neighbor- 
hood an air of great life and animation. 

Our party, three in number, took one of the light, open car- 
riages, with which the Island abounds, and started, the next morning 
after our arrival, to explore it pretty thoroughly. 

The neighborhood of East Cowes, abounds with pretty seats, and, 
on the opposite shore, are numberless little cottages, by the side of 
the water, " to let," with all the cosy fui-niture in-doors, of English 
domestic life, and out-of-door accompaniments of trees and shrubs, 
and overhanging vines, that gave them a very inviting appearance. 
Although I had never lived under the authority of a landlord, I 
could find nothing but temptations to become a lessee of such pretty 
domicils as these. They look so truly home-ish, and tell you at a 
glance, such a story of years of the tenderest care and attention, in 
all that makes a cottage charming, that they make one long to stop 
acting the traveller, and nestle down in the bosom of that peaceful 
domestic life, which they suggest. 

A short distance, perhaps a mile, from Cowes, is Osborne House 
— the marine residence of Victoria. This place is her private pro- 
perty, and having been almost wholly erected within a few years 
past, may be said to afford a tolerable index to the taste of her Ma- 
jesty. The residence is an extensive villa, in the modern Italian 
style, with a( front of perhaps two hundred feet, and the outlines 
picturesquely broken by tower or campanile. It stands in the midst 
of a sandy plain, which is level around the house and towards the 
road, and undulating and broken towards the sea — of which it com- 
mands fine views. 

It is fenced off" from the highway by a close, rough board " park 
paling," some seven or eight feet high. Within this fence is a 
belt of young trees, and scattered here and there, over the surface 
of most of the inclosure, are groups and patches of small trees and 
shrubs, newly planted. The whole place has, most completely, the 
look of the pretentious place of some of our wealthy men at home, 



624 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

who, turning their backs upon the numberless fine natural sites, with 
which our country abounds, choose the barest and baldest situation, 
in order that they may dig, delve, level and grade, and spend half 
their foitunes, in doing what nature has, not a mile distant, offered 
to them ready made, and a thousand times more beautifully done. 
Osborne House may be a tolerable residence (we mean respecting 
its out-of-door pleasure) fifty years hence ; but it is almost the only 
country-seat that we saw in England, that looked thoroughly raw and 
uncomfortable. I suppose, in a country where every thing seems 
finished, there is a singular pleasure in taking a place in the rough, 
and working beauties out of tameness and insipidity. The Queen 
lives here, and walks and drives about the neighborhood, in a com- 
paratively simple and unostentatious manner, and attracts very little 
attention, and her husband practises farming and planting, quite in 
good earnest. 

A country-seat, only a mile distant, in a thoroughly English 
taste, was a complete contrast to the foregoing, and gave lis great 
pleasure. This is Norris Castle, built by Lord Seymour, but now 
the property of Mr. Bell, who resides here. Neither the place, nor 
the house, is larger than several on the Hudson, and the grounds 
reminded me, in the simple lawn or park, sprinkled with fine groups 
of trees, of Livingston Manor and EUerslie. The house gave me 
greater pleasure, than any modern castellated building that I have 
seen ; partly because it was simple, and essentially domestic-looking, 
and yet, with a fine relish of antiquity about it. The facade may, 
perhaps, be one himdred and thirty feet, and I was never more sur- 
prised than when I learned that the whole was erected' quite lately. 
The walls are of gray stone, rather rough, and they get a large part 
of their beauty from the luxuriant vines that festoon every part of 
the castle. The vines are the Ivy, and our Virginia creepei", inter- 
mingled, and as both cling to the stone, they form the most pictur- 
esque drapery, which has, in a few years, reached to the top of the 
battlemented tower, and given a mellow and venerable character to 
the whole edifice. 

We dined at Newport, the substantial little town, which, lying 
nearly in the centre of the Island, serves as its capital and principal 
market. The Isle of Wight, enjoying, as it does, a wholly insulated 



THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 525 

position, is- almost the only English ground not interlaced by rail- 
roads. For this season, the genuine stage-coach, now comparatively 
obsolete elsewhere, still flourishes here, and still carries a number of 
passengers outside, quite at variance with all our ideas of safety 
and speed. The guard, who accompanies these coaches, usually per- 
forms an obligato on the French horn or key bugle, just before the 
coach starts — and performs it, too, with so much spirit and taste, 
tliat it was not without some difficulty I could resist the temptation 
to join his party. Progress, and the spirit of the times, though 
they give us most substantial benefits, in the shape of railroads, etc., 
certainly do not add to the poetry of life — as I thought when I 
compared the delicious air of Bellini, played by the coach guard, 
with the horribje screams of the steam-whistle of the locomotive — 
now associated with the travel of all chi-istendom. 

It is but a mile from Newport to Carisbrook Castle — one of the 
most interesting old ruins in England. It crowns a fine hill, and 
from the top of its ruined towers, you look over a lovely landscape 
of hill and vale, picturesque villages, and green meadows. The 
castle, itself, with its fortifications, covers perhaps half a dozen acres, 
and is just in that state of ruin and decay, best calculated to excite 
the imagination, and send one upon a voyage into dream-land. 
You clamber over the parapets, and look out from amid the mould- 
, ering battlements, mantled with the richest masses of ivy, and see 
wild trees growing in the very centre of what were once stately 
apartments. Here is the veiy window from which Charles I. vainly 
endeavored to make his escape, when he was a prisoner within 
these walls, two hundred years ago (1647). I felt tempted to ques- 
tion the stone walls around me, of the sad soliloquies which they 
had heard uttered by that royal prisoner and his children, confined 
here after him. But the stone looked silent and cold ; the ivy, 
however, so full of mingled life and health and antiquity, seemed 
full of the mysterious secrets of the place, and would, doubtless, 
have unburdened itself to a willing ear, if any such would linger 
here long enough to get into its confidence. I looked down into 
the vast well, in the centre of the castle, three hundred feet deep, 
and still in excellent order — from which water is drawn by an ass, 
walking his slow rounds inside a large windlass wheel. I clambered 



626 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

up the seventy-two stone steps that led into the high old ruined 
hccp^ and found one of my companions (who is a military man) 
discoursing to a little group of tourists, who had made a picnic on 
the ramparts, about the nature of the fortifications — breastworks — 
and bastions, which cover some fifteen or twenty acres under the 
castle walls. While he was demonstrating how easily this ancient 
stronghold could be taken by a modern besieger, I speculated on 
the quiet way in wdiich a few types and a printing press are, at the 
present moment, far moi-e powerful restrainers of wayward sov- 
ereigns, and more able protectors of the rights of the people, than 
the fierce battlements, and standing war dogs, of the old castles of 
two centuries ago. The imagination is so excited by these strong 
old castles, now fast crumbling into dust, that we w.onder what the 
people of two hundred years hence will have, to be romantic and 
picturesque about, as emblems of power in a by-gone age. An old 
printing-press, or galvanic battery, perhaps ! No — even they will 
be melted up for their value, as old metal. 

We drove from Carisbrook, to the extreme end of the Island — 
saw the Needles, the colored sands, and the white clift's of Albion, 
and returned by the south side. What pleased me more than even 
the sea views, and the bold bays, and snowy clifis (perhaps from 
novelty), were the Downs — those long reaches of gently sloping sur- 
face, covered with very short grass — as close and fine as the finest 
lawn. They are so smooth and hard, and the air is so pure and 
exhilarating, the temperature so bracing and delightful, that one is 
tempted into walking — or even running — miles and miles, upon 
them. Here and there, mingled Avith the grass, on the breeziest 
parts of the Downs, 1 saw tufts of heather, in full bloom, only two 
or three inches high — their purple bells embroidering, as with the 
most delicate pattern, the fragrant turf. Herds of sheep graze upon 
these Downs, and the flavor of the mutton, as you may suppose, is 
not despised by those who cannot live upon air, however elastic and 
exhilarating. 

All over the Island, the roads, sometimes broad — but often 
mere narrow lanes — are bordered by high hawthorn hedges — so 
that frequently you drive for a mile or more, without getting a peep 
beyond tlles^■ leafy walls of verdure. I could imagine that in May, 



THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 527 

when these hedges are all white with blossoms, the whole Island 
must be a very gay landscape — but just now, they only served to 
confirm me in my opinion of the Englishman's fondness for seclu- 
sion and privacy, in his own demesne. Just in proportion to the 
smallness of his place, his desire to shut out all the rest of the world 
increases — so that if he only owns half an acre, his hedge shall be 
eight feet high, and the sanctity of the paradise within remains in- 
violate. The solid, high, well-built stone wall around some of the 
little cottage and villa places, of half an acre, on the south side of 
the Island, astonished me, and gave me a new understanding of the 
saying, that " every man's house is his castle." Here, at least, I 
thought, it is clear that people understand what is meant by private 
rights, and intend to have them respected. 

It was not until I reached the pretty villages of Bowchurch, 
Shanklin, and Ventnor, that my ideal of the Isle of Wight was re- 
alized. These villages lie on the south side of the Island, backed 
by steep hills, and sloping to the sea. The climate is almost per- 
fection. It is neither hot in summer nor cold in winter, and though 
open to all the sea-breezes, the latter seem shorn of all their violence 
here. The consequence is, they enjoy that perfect marriage of the 
land and sea so rarely witnessed in northern climates. The finest 
groves and woods, the richest shrubbery and flower-gardens, the 
most emerald-like glades of turf, here run down almost to the beach, 
and you have all the luxuriant beauty of vegetation, in its loveliest 
forms, joined to all the sublimity, life and excitement of the ocean 
views, As to the climate, you may judge of its mildness and uni- 
formity, when I tell you that the bay trees of the Mediterranean 
grow here on the lawns, as luxuriantly as snow-balls do at home, and 
fuchsias, as tall as your head, make rich masses in almost every 
garden, and stand the winter as well here, as lilacs or syringoes do 
Avith us. In the neighborhood of Shanklin, I saw a charming old 
parsonage house — the very picture of spacious ease and comfort — 
with its great bay windows, its picturesque gables, and its thatched 
roof — quite embowered in tall myrtles — Roman myrtles — one of 
our cherished green-house plants, that here have grown thirty or 
forty feet high, quite above the eaves ! Bays, Portugal laurels, hol- 
Hes and China roses, surround this parsonage, and never lose their 



528 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

freshness and verdure (the owner assured me that the roses bloomed 
all winter long), cheating the inhabitants into the belief that winter 
is an allegory, or if not, has only a substantial existence in Iceland 
or Spitzbcrgen. 

Then the hotels here — especially in Shanklin — are absolutely ro- 
mantic in their rural beauty. Designed like the prettiest cottages, 
or rather in a quaint and rambling style, half cottage and half villa, 
the roof covered with thatch, and the walls with ivy, jessamines, 
and perpetual roses, and set down in the midst of a charming lawn, 
and surrounded by shrubbery, you feel the same reluctance to take 
the room which the chambermaid — with the freshest of roses in her 
cheeks, and the cleanest of caps upon her head — shows you, as you 
would in hiring the apartments of some tasteful fi-iend in reduced 
circumstances. When you rise from your dinner (admirably served), 
always in a private parlor, the casement windows open ujion a vel- 
vety lawn, bright with masses of scarlet geraniums, verbenas, and tea 
roses set in the turf, and you give yourself up to the profound con- 
viction that for snugness, and cosiness, and pei'fection at a rural inn, 
the world can contain nothing better than may be found in the Isle 
of Wight. 

Bonchurch disputes the palm with Shanklin, for pictures(|ue and 

sylvan beauty. We made a visit here to Capt. S of the Royal 

Navy, whose beautiful villa in the Elizabethan style, gave me an 
opportunity for indulging my architectural and antiquarian taste to 
the utmost. Imagine an entrance through a rocky dell, the steep 
sides of which are clothed with the richest climbing plants, between 
which your carriage winds for some distance, passing under a light 
airy bridge, with festopns of ivy and clusters of blooming creepers 
waving over your head . You soon emei'ge upon the prettiest of 
little lawns, studded with fine oaks, and running down to* the very 
shore of the sea. On the left are shrubberies, pleasure-grounds, 
kitchen and flower gardens, all in their place, and though you think 
the place one of sixty or eighty acres, there are not above twenty. 

The house itself is one of the most picturesque and agreeable 
residences of moderate size that I have ever seen. Its interior, 
especially, unites architectural beauty, antique charactei-, and modern 
comfort, to a surprising degree. Every room seemed to have been 



THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 629 

Studied, so that not a feature was omitted, or an eiFect lost, that could 
add to the pleasure or increase the beauty of a home of this kind. 

If I was delighted with the house, I was astonished with the 
furniture. It was all in the antiqite Elizabethan style — richly 
carved in dark oak or ebony. This is not very rare in England, and 
I had seen a good deal of the same style in many of the great 
country mansions before. But almost every piece here, was either 
a masterpiece of workmanshij^, or marked by singular beauty of 
design, or of great historical interest. Yet the effect of the whole, 
and the adaptation to the uses of each separate room, had been con- 
sidered, so that the ensemble gave the impression of the finest unity 

of taste. Among the fine specimens which Lady S had the 

goodness especially to make us acquainted with, I remember an 
exquisitely carved work-box once presented by Essex to Elizabeth, 
a curious silver clock that belonged to Charles I. (and was carried 
about with him in his carriage on his journeys) ; and a superbly 
carved, high bedstead, once Sir Walter Raleigh's, and the couch of 
Cardinal Wolsey. There was an old Dutch organ, bearing the date 
1592, of singularly beautiful workmanship, and still in perfect tone. 
Some rare and unique carved oak cabinets, of flemish origin one of 
them with the history of John the Baptist carved in the different 
panels, challenged the most elaborate investigation. Of beautiful 
chairs, seats, and carved wainscot, there was the greatest variety, 
and in short the house was at once a museum for an antiquarian — 
and the most agreeable home to live in . 

This villa was built by a wealthy eccentric — I think a bachelor 
— who wholly finished the collection only a few years ago. He 
carried his passion for collecting very choice and rare antique furni- 
ture — especially that of undoubted historical interest — to such an 
extent, that it became a species of madness, and at last led him 
through a very large fortune, and forced him to surrender the whole 
to his creditors. You may judge something of the cost of the fur- 
niture — every, room in the house being well filled — when I tell you 
that for a single Flemish cabinet, only remarkable for its superb 
carving, not for any history attached to it, he paid £900 (about 
$4,500). The property, when brought into market in the gross, 
34 



630 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

was of course bought by the present owner at a merely nominal 
sum, compared with its original cost. 

England, though in the main remarkable for its common sense, 
abounds with instances like this, of large wealth applied to the in- 
dulgence of personal taste — to the building of a great mansion, the 
collection of books, pictures, or to the indulgence of personal whims 
or fancies. Thus the Earl of Harrington has in his seat near Derby, 
a peculiar spot of twenty or thirty acres, wholly filled with the rarest 
and most beautiful evergreens in the world — where araucarias and 
deodars, bought when they were worth five or ten guineas apiece, 
are as plentiful now as hemlocks in Western New- York ; where 
dark-green Irish yews stand along the walks like sable sentinels, and 
gold and silver hollies and yews are cut into peacocks, shepherds, 
and shepherdesses, and all manner of strange and fantastical whim- 
sies. The conceit, though odd (I had a glimpse of it), is the finest 
specimen of its kind in the world — yet the owner — an old man now 
— who has amused himself and spent vast sums on this garden for 
twenty years past, will not let a soul enter it — unless it may be some 
gardener whom it is impossible to imagine a critic. Even the Duke 
of Devonshire — so the story goes — in order to get a sight of it 
went incog, as a kitchen gardener. The Duke of Marlborough, a 
few years ago, had a private garden at Blenheim, surrounded by a 
high wall, into which even his own brother had not been admitted. 
You see even the most amiable qualities of the heart — those which 
lead us to make our homes happy^occasionally run into a mono- 
mania. 

I left the Isle of Wight with the feeling that if I should ever 
need the nursing of soft airs and kindly influences in a foreign land, 
I should try to find my way back to it again. Even one, blest with 
excellent health, and usually insensible to the magical influence which 
most persons find in a change of air, finds something added to the 
pleasurable sensation of breathing and taking exercise, in the de- 
licious summer freshness of this spot. 

Thei-e is another memorandum which I made here and which is 
worth relating. In England at large, the great wealth of the landed 
aristocracy, and the enormous size of their establishments, raises the 
houses and gardens to a scale so far above ours, that they are not 



THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 531 

directly or practically instructive to Americans. In the Isle of 
Wight, on the other hand, are numerous pretty cottages, villas and 
country houses, almost precisely on a transatlantic scale as to the 
first cost and the style of living. For this reason, one who can only 
learn by seeing the thing done to a scale that he can easily measure, 
should come to the Isle of Wight to study how to get the most for 
his money — rather than to Chatsworth or Eaton Hall. And it is 
this kind of rural beauty, the tasteful embellishment of small places, 
for which the United States will, I am confident, become celebrated 
in fifty years more. 



VL 

WOBURN ABBEY. 

September, 1860. 

I RECEIVED in London, a note from the Duke of Bedford, which 
led me, while I was in Bedfordshire, to make a visit to Wobum 
Abbey. 

This is considered one of the most complete estates and estab- 
lishments in the kingdom. It is fully equal to Chatsworth, but quite 
in another way. Chatsworth is semi-continental, or rather it is the 
concentration of every thing that European art can do to embellish 
and render beautiful a great country residence. Woburn Abbey is 
thoroughly English ; that is, it does not aim at beauty, so much as 
grandeur of extent and substantial completeness, united with the 
most systematic and thorough administration of the whole. Besides 
this, it interested me much as the home, for exactly three centuries, 
of a family which has adorned its high station by the highest vir- 
tues, and by an especial devotion to the interests of the soil.* The 
present Duke of Bedford is one of the largest and most scientific 
farmers in England, and his father, the late Duke, was not only an 
enthusiastic agriculturist, but the greatest arboricultm-ist and botanist 
of his day, whose works, both practical and literary, made their 
mark upon the age. 

The Woburn estate consists of about thirty thousand acres of 

* The first John Russell, Duke of Bedford, came into possession of thie 
estate, in 1549, and it has descended in the family ever since. In one of the 
apartments of the palace is a series of miniature portraits of the heads of tihe 
family in an unbroken line, for 300 years. 



WOBURN ABBEY. 533 

land. There is a fine park of three thousand acres. You enter the 
approach through a singularly rich avenue of evergreens, composed 
of a belt perhaps one hundred feet broad, sloping down like an am- 
phitheatre of foliage, from tall Norway spruces and pines in the 
background, to rich hollies and Portugal laurels in front. This 
continues, perhaps, half a mile, and then you leave it and wind 
through an open park, spacious and grand — for a couple of miles 
— till you reach the Abbey. This is not a building in an antique 
style, but a grand and massive pile in the classical manner, built 
about the middle of the last century on the site of the old Abbey. 
I have said this place seemed to me essentially English. The first 
sight of the house is peculiarly so. It is built of Portland stone, 
and has that mossy, discolored look which gathers about even mo- 
dern buildings in this damp climate, and which we in America 
know nothing of, under our pure and bright skies — where the fresh- 
ness of stone remains imsullied almost any length of time. 

Wobui-n Abbey is a large palace, and containing as it does the 
accumulated luxuries, treasures of art, refinements, and comforts of 
80 old and wealthy a family (with an income of nearly a million 
of our money), you will not be surprised when I say that we have 
nothing with which to compare it. Indeed, I believe Woburn is 
considered tlie most complete house in England, and that is saying 
a good deal, when you remember that there are 20,000 private 
houses in Great Britain, larger than our President's House. To get 
an idea of it, you must imagine a square mass, about which, exter- 
nally — especially on the side fronting the park — there is little to im- 
press you ; only the appearance of large size and an air of simple 
dignity. Imagine this quadrangular pile three stories high on the 
park or entrance front, and two stories high on the garden or rear, 
and over two hundred feet in length, on each side. The drawing- 
room floor, though in the second story, is therefore exactly on a 
level with the gardens and pleasure-grounds in the rear, and the 
whole of this large floor is occupied with an unbroken suite of 
superb apartments — drawing-rooms, picture galleries, music-rooms, 
library, etc. — projecting and receding, and stealing out and in among 
the delicious scenery of the pleasure-grounds, in the most agreeable 
manner. There is a noble library with 20,000 volumes; a gallery, 



634 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

one hundred and forty feet long, filled with fine sculpture (among 
otlier things the original group of the three graces, by Canova), 
and a sort of wide corridor running all around the quadrangle, 
filled with cabinets of natural history, works of art, &c., and foi-ra- 
ing the most interesting in-door walk in dull weather. Pictures by 
the great masters, especially portraits, these rooms are very rich in, 
and among other things I noticed casts in plaster, of all the cele- 
brated animals that were reared here by the late Duke. 

Now, imagine the quadrangle continued in the rear on one side 
next the sculpture gallery, through a colonnade-like . side series 
of buildings, including riding-house, tennis court, etc., a quarter of 
a mile, to the stables, which are of themselves larger than most 
country houses ; imagine hot-houses and conservatories almost with- 
out number, connected with the house by covered passages, so as to 
combine the utmost comfort and beauty ; imagine an aviary con- 
sisting of a cottage and the grounds about it fenced in and filled 
with all manner of birds of brilliant and beautiful plumage ; ima- 
gine a large dairy, fitted up in the Chinese style with a fountain in 
the middle, and the richest porcelain vessels for milk and butter ; 
imagine a pnvate garden of bowers and trellis work, embosomed in 
creepers, which belongs especially to the Duchess, and you have a 
kind of sketchy outline of the immediate accessories of Woburn 
Abbey. They occupy the space of a little village in themselves ; 
but you would gather no idea of the luxury and comfort they afford, 
did you for a moment forget that the whole is managed with that 
order and system which are nowhere to be found so perfect as in 
England. I must add, to give you another idea of the establish- 
ment, that a hundred beds are made up daily for the family and 
household alone, exclusive of guests. The pleasure-grounds, which 
surround three sides of the house, and upon which these rooms open, 
are so beautiful and complete that you must allow me to dwell upon 
them a little. They consist of a series of different gardens merging 
one into the other, so as to produce a delightful variety, and cover- 
ing a space of many acres — about which I walked in so bewildered 
a state of delight that I am quite unable to say how large they are. 
I know, however, that they contain an avenue of araucarias backed 
by another of Deodar cedars in the most luxuriant growtli — each 



WOBURN ABBEY. 636 

line upwards of 1,000 feet long. A fine specimen of the latter tree, 
twenty-five or thirty feet high, attracted my attention, and there 
was another, twenty-five feet, of the beautiful Norfolk Island pine, 
growing in the open ground, with the shelter of a glazed frame in 
winter. These pleasure-grounds, however, interested me most in 
that portion called the American garden — several acres of sloping 
velvety turf, thickly dotted with groups of rhododendrons, azaleas, 
(fee, forming the richest masses of dark green foliage that it is pos- 
sible to conceive. In the months of May and June, when these are 
in full bloom, this must be a scene of almost dazzling brilliancy. 
The soil for them had all been formed artificially, and consisted of a 
mixture of peat and white sand, in which the rhododendrons and 
kalmias seemed to thrive admirably. 

Besides this scene, there is a garden composed wholly of heaths, 
the beds cut in the (urf, one species in each bed, and full of delicate 
bells ; a parterre flower-garden in which a striking effect was pro- 
duced by contrasting vases colored quite black, with rich masses 
(growing in the vases) of scarlet geraniums. I also saw a garden 
devoted wholly to willows, and another to grasses — both the most 
complete collections of these two genera in the world — the taste of 
the former Duke — and with which I was familiar beforehand, 
through the " Salictum Woburnense,'''' and Mr. Sinclair's work on 
the " Grasses of WohurnP 

The park is the richest in large evergreens of any that I have 
ever seen. The planting taste of the former Duke has produced at 
the present moment, after a growth of fifty or sixty years, the most 
superb results. The Cedars of Lebanon — the most sublime and 
venerable of all trees, and the gi-andest of all evergreens, bore off' 
the palm — though all the rare pines and firs that were known to 
arboriculturists half a century ago are here in the greatest perfection 
— including hollies and Portugal laurels which one is accustomed 
to think of as shrubs, with great trunks like timber trees and mag- 
nificent heads of glossy foliage. A grand old silver fir has a 
straight trunk eighty feet high, and a lover of trees could spend 
weeks here without exhausting the arboricultural interest of the 
park alone — which is, to be sure, some ten or twelve miles round. 

A very picturesque morceau in the park, inclosed and forming 



636 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

a little scene by itself, is Ccalled the Thornery. It is an abrupt piece 
of ground covered with a wild looking copse of old thorns, hazeis, 
dog-woods and fantastic old oaks, and threaded by walks in various 
directions. In the centre is a most complete little cottage, with the 
neatest Scotch kitchen, little parlor and furniture inside, and a sort 
of fairy flower garden outside. 

All this may be considered the ornamental portion of Woburn, 
and I have endeavored to raise such a picture of it in your mind as 
would most interest your readers. But you must remember that 
farming is the pride of A'Voburn, and that farming is here a matter 
of immense importance, involving the outlay of immense capital, 
and a personal interest and systematic attention which seems almost 
like managing the affairs of state. About half a mile from the 
house is the farmery — the most complete group of farm buildings, 
perhaps, in the world, where the incoming harvest make a figure 
only equalled by the accommodations to receive it. Besides these 
there are mills and workshops of all kinds, and on the outskirts of 
the park a whole settlement of farm cottages. I can only give you 
an idea of the attention bestowed on details, and the interest taken in 
the comforts of the immediate tenants by resorting to figures, 
and telling you that the present Duke has expended £70,000 
(£350,000), within the past five years, in the farm cottages on this 
estate, which are model cottages — combining the utmost convenience 
and comfort for dvvellings of this class, with so much of architectu- 
ral taste as is befitting to dwellings of this size. Of course, a large 
part of this estate is let out to tenants, but still a large tract is ma- 
naged by the Duke himself, who pays more than 400 laborers 
weekly throughout the year. The farming is very thorough, and 
the effects of draining in improving the land have been veiy strik- 
ing. Above fifty miles of drain have been laid, in this estate alone, 
annually, for several years past. 

You will gather from this, that English agriculture is not made 
a mere recreation, and that even with the assistance of the most 
competent and skilful agents, the life of a nobleman, with the im- 
mense estate and the agricultural tastes of the Duke of Bedford, is 
one of constant occupation and active employment. Besides this 



WOBURN ABBEY. 537 

estate, he has another in Cambridgeshire, called the " Bedford 
Level" — a vast prairie of some 18,000 acres reclaimed from the 
sea, and kept dry by the constant action of steam engines, but w^hich 
is very productive, and is, perhaps, the most profitable farm land in 
the kingdom. 



1 



vn. 

DROPMORE.— ENGLISH RAILWAYS.— SOCIETY. 

September, 1850. 

DROPMORE is the seat of Lady Grenville, and has been cele- 
brated, for some time, for its collection of rare trees — especially 
evergreens. It is in the neighborhood of Windsor, and I passed a 
morning there with a good deal of interest. 

In point of taste and beauty, Dropmore disappointed me. The 
site is flat, the soil sandy and thin, and the arrangement, in no way 
remarkable. The mansion is not so fine as some upon the Hudson, 
and the scenery about it, does not rise above the dead level of a 
uniformity rendered less insipid by abundant plantations. There is, 
however, a wilderness of flower-garden about the house, in which I 
saw scarlet geraniums and garden vases enough to embellish a, 
whole village. The efiect, however, was riant and gay without the 
sentiment of real beauty. 

But one does not go to Norway to drink sherbet, and Dropmore 
is only a show place by virtue of its Pinetum. This is its collec- 
tion of evergreen trees, and particularly of the pine tribe — every 
species that will grow in England being collected in this one place. 

Of course, in a scientific collection of evergreen trees, there are 
many that are only curious to the botanist — many that are only valu- 
able for timber, and many that are almost ugly in their growth — or 
at least present no attractive feature to the general eye. But there 
are also, in this Pinetum, some evergreens of such rare and wonder- 
ful beauty, growing in such exquisite perfection of development, 
that they efiect a tree-lover like those few finest Raphaels and Van- 



DROPMORE. 63& 

dykes in the great galleries, which irradiate whole acres of com- 
mon art. 

The oldest and finest portion of the Pinetum occupies a lawn of 
several acres near the house, upon which are assembled, like belles 
at a levee, many of those loveliest of evergi-eens — the araucaria or 
pine of Chili, the Douglass' fir of California, the sacred cedar of 
India, the funcebral cypress of Japan, and many others. 

Perhaps the finest tree in this scene is the Douglass' fir [Abies 
Douglassii). It is sixty-two feet high, and has grown to this alti- 
tude in twenty-one years from the seed. It resembles most the 
Norway spruce, as one occasionally sees the finest form of that tree, 
having that graceful downward sweep of the branches and feathering 
out quite down to the turf— but it is altogether more airy in form 
and of a richer and darker green in color. At this size it is the 
symbol of stately elegance. Here is also a specimen, thirty feet 
high, of Pinus insignis, the richest and darkest of all pines, as well 
as Pinus excelsa, one of the most affectedly pretty evergreens — its 
silvery leaves resembling those of the white pine, but drooping lan- 
guidly — and Pinus macrocarpa with longer leaves than those of 
the pinaster.* 

But the gem of the^ collection is the superb Chili pine or arau- 
caria — the oldest, I think, in England, or, at all events, the finest. 
The seed was presented to the late Lord Grenville by William IV th 
— who had some of the first gigantic cones of this tree that were 
imported. This specimen is now thirty feet high, perfectly symme- 
trical, the stem as straight as a column — the branches disposed 
with the utmost regularity, and the lower ones drooping and 
touching the ground like those of a larch. If you will not smile, I 
will tell you that it struck me that the expression of this tree is 
heroic — that is, it looks the very Mars of evergreens. There are no 
slender twigs, no small branches — but a great stem vnth branches 
like a colossal bronze candelabrum, or perhaps the whole reminds 
one more of some gigantic, dark green coral than a living, flexible 

* Taxodium sempervirens is here seventeen feet high — rich dark green in 
foliage and very ornamental. Cryptomeria japonica, nearly as large, rather 
disappointed rae — ^keeping its brown leaves so long as to disfigure the plant 
Bomewhat. Picea nohilis is a ti-uly beautiful fir tree. 



540 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

tree. Yet it is a grand object — in its richest of dark green, its no- 
ble aspect, and its powerful, defiant attitude. This is quite the best 
specimen that I have seen, and stands in a light, sandy soil on a 
gravelly bottom — on which soil, I was told, it only grows luxuriantly. 
I do not know how well this fine evergreen will succeed at home. 
It is now on trial — but I would hint to those who may fail from 
planting it in rich damp soil, that even here, it completely fails in 
such situations. 

After leaving what I should call the Pinetuni in full dress — i. e. 
in the highly-kept part of the grounds near the house, you emerge 
gradually into a tract of many acres of nearly level surface, which 
reminded me so strongly of a scattered Jersey pine barren, that had 
it not been for tufts and patches of that charming little plant the 
heather in full bloom, growing wild on all sides, I might have fan- 
cied myself in the neighborhood of Amboy. The whole looked, 
and much of it was, essentially wild, with the exception of carriage- 
drives and foot-paths running through the mingled copse, heath and 
woodland. But I was soon convinced of the fact that it was not 
entirely a wild growth, by being shown, here and there, looking 
quite as if they had come up by chance, rare specimens of pines, 
firs, cedars, etc., from all parts of the world, and presently I came 
upon a noble avenue, half a mile long, of cedars of Lebanon (a tree 
to which I always feel inclined to take off my hat as I would do to 
an old cathedral). The latter have been planted about twenty-five 
years, and are just beginning to merge the beautiful in the grand. 
Every thing in the shape of an evergreen seems to thrive in this 
light sandy soil, and I suggest to the owners of similar waste land 
in the middle and southern States, to take the hint from this part 
of Dropmore — plant here and there in the openings the same ever- 
green trees, protecting them by slight paling at first, and gradually 
clearing away all the common growth as they advance into beauty. 
In this way they may get a wonderfully interesting park — in soil 
where oaks and elms would never grow — at a very trifling outlay. 

I cannot dismiss Dropmore without mentioning a superb hedge 
of Portugal laurel, thirty-one feet high — and the beautiful " Burnam 
beeches," almost as fine as one ever sees in America, that I passed 
on the way back to the railway station. 



ENGLISH RAILWAYS. 541 

The last word reminds me that I must say a word or two here, 
about the English railways. In point of speed I think their reputa- 
tion outruns the fact. I did not find their average (with the excep- 
tion of the road between Liverpool and London) much above that 
of our best northern and eastern roads. They make, for instance, 
hardly twenty miles an hour with the ordinary trains, and about 
thirty-six miles an hour with the express trains. But the perfect 
order and system with which they are managed ; the obliging 
civility of all persons in the employment of the companies to travel- 
lers, and the quietness with which the business of the road is carried 
on, strikes an American very strongly. For example, suppose you 
are on a raih'oad at home. You are about to approach a small 
town, where you may leave and take up, perhaps, twenty passen- 
gers. As soon as the town is in sight, the engine or its whistle be- 
gins to scream out — the bell rings — the steam whizzes — and the 
train stops. Out hurry the way passengers, in rush the new comers. 
Again the bell rings, the steam whizzes, and with a noise something 
between a screech and a yell, but more infernal than either — a 
noise that deafens the old ladies, delights the boj-s, and frightens all 
the horses, off rushes the train — whizzing and yelling over a mile 
or two more of the country, before it takes breath for the like pro- 
cess at the next station. 

In an English railway you seldom hear the scream of the steam 
whistle at all. It is not considered part of the business of the en- 
gineer to disturb the peace of the whole neighborhood, and inform 
them that he and the train are coming. The guard at the station 
notices the train when it first comes in sight. He immediately rings 
a hand-bell, just loud enough to warn the passengers in the station, 
to get ready. The train arrives — no yelling, screaming — or whizzing 
— possibly a gentle letting off of the steam — quite a necessary 
thing — not at all for eflfect. The passengers get out, and others get 
in, and are all carefully seated by the aforesaid guard or guards. 
When this is all done, the guard of the station gives a tinkle or two 
with his hand-bell again, to signify to the conductor that all is 
Feady, and off the train darts, as quietly as if it knew screaming to 
be a thing not tolerated in good society. But the difierence is na- 
tional after all. John Bull says in his railroads, as in every thing 



542 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

else, " steady — all right." Brother Jonathan, " clear the coast — gc 
ahead !" Still, as our most philosophical writer has said, it is only 
boys and savages who scream — men learn to control themselves — 
we hope to see the time when our people shall find out the advan- 
tages of possessing power without making a noise about it. 

If we may take a lesson from the English in the management of 
railways, they might learn vastly more from us in the accommodation 
of passengers. What are called " first-class carriages" on the Eng- 
lish rails, are thoroughly comfortable, in the English sense of the 
word. They have seats for six — each double-cushioned, padded, and 
set-off from the rest, like the easy chair of an alderman, in which 
you can intrench yourself and imagine that the world was made 
for you alone. But only a small part of the travel in England is in 
first-class cars, for it is a luxury that must be paid for in hard gold 
— costing four or five times as much as the most comfortable travel- 
ling by railroad in the United States. And the second-class cars — 
in which the great majority of the British people really travel — 
what are they ? Neat boxes, in which you may sit down on a per- 
fectly smooth board, and find out all the softness that lies in the 
grain of deal or good English oak — for they are guiltless of all 
cushions. Our neighbors of this side of the Atlantic have been so 
long accustomed to catering for the upper class in this country, that 
the fact that the railroad is the most democratic institution of the 
day, has not yet dawned upon them in all its breadth. An American 
rail-car, built to carry a large number in luxurious comfort, at a 
price that seems fabulous in England, pays better profits by the im- 
mense travel it begets, than the ill-devised first and second-class car- 
riages of the English railways. 

But what finish and nicety in these English roads ! The grades 
all covered with turf, kept as nice as a lawn, quite down to the rails, 
and the divisions between the road and the lands adjoining, made 
by nicely trimmed hedges. The larger stations are erected in so ex- 
pensive and solid a manner as to have greatly impaired the profits 
of some of the roads. But the smaller ones are almost always built 
in the style of the cottage ornee — and, indeed, are some of the pret- 
tiest and most picturesque rural buildings that I have seen in Eng- 
land. They all have their little fiower-gardens, generally a parterre 



SOCIETY. 543 

lying open quite to the edge of the rail, and looking like a gay car- 
pet thrown on the green sward. If the English are an essentially 
common sense people, they, at least, have a love of flowers in all 
places, that has something quite romantic in it. 

I reached London only to leave it again in another direction, to 

accept a kind invitation to the country house of Mrs. -. , the 

distinguished authoress of some charming works of fiction — which 
are widely known in ray country, though I shall not transgress Eng- 
lish propriety by giving you a clew to her real name. 

This place reminded me of home more than any that I have 
seen in England ; not, indeed, of my own home in the Hudson 
highlands, with its bold river and mountain scenery, but of the gen- 
eral features of American cultivated landscape. The house, which 
is not unlike a country house of good size with us, is situated on a 
hill which rises gently, but so high above the surrounding country, 
as to give a wide panorama of field and woodland, such as one sees 
from a height about Boston and Philadelphia. The approach, and 
part of the grounds, are bordered with plantations of forest-trees, 
which, though all planted, have been left td themselves so much as 
to look quite like our native after-growth at home. The place, too, 
has not the thorough full-dress air of the great English country 
places where I have been staying lately, and, both in extent and 
keeping, is more like a residence on the Hudson. The house sits 
down quite on a level with the ground, however, so that you can 
step out of the drawing-room on the soft grass, and stroll to yonder 
bright flower-garden, grouped round the fountain dancing in the 
sunshine, as if you were only going out of one room into another. 
In the library is a great bay-window, and a spacious fire-place set in 
a deep recess lined with books, suggesting warmth and comfort at 
once, to both mind and body ; and the air of the whole place, joined 
to the unaffected and cordial welcome from many kind voices, gave 
me a feeling of maladie du pays that I had not felt before in England. 

There are no especial wonders of park or palace here, though 
there is a great deal of quiet beauty, and as I have, pei'haps, given 
you almost a surfeit of great places lately, you will not regret it. I 
look out of the windows, however, and see in abundance here, as 
every where, those two evergreens that enrich with their broad 



544 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

glossy leaves all English gardens and pleasure-grounds, and which 
I never cease to reproach for their monarchical habits — since they 
so obstinately refuse to be naturalized in our republic — I mean the 
English and Portugal laurels. I would give all the hot-house plants 
that Yankee glass covers, to have these two evergreens as much at 
home in our pleasure-grounds as they are every where in England. 

There are other guests in the house — Sir Charles M , 

Lady P., some Irish ladies without titles (but so rich in natural gifts 
as to make one feel the poverty of mere rank), and a charming fam- 
ily of grown up daughters. It would be difficult, perhaps, to have 
a better opportunity to judge of the life of the educated middle 
class of this country, than in such homes as this. And what im- 
pressions do such examples make upon my mind, you will ask ? I 
will tell you (not without remembering how many fair young read- 
ers you have at home). The young English woman is less conspic- 
uously accomplished than our young women of the same position in 
America. There is, perhaps, a little less of that je ne sais quoi — 
that nameless gi^ce which captivates at first sight — than with us, 
but a better and more solid education, more disciplined minds, and 
above all, more common sense. In the whole art of conversation, 
including all the topics of the day, with so much of politics as makes 
a woman really a companion for an intelligent man in his serious 
thoughts, in history, language, and practical knowledge of the duties 
of social and domestic life, the English women have, 1 imagine, few 
superiors. But what, perhaps, would strike one of our young women 
most, in English society, would be the thorough cultivation and re- 
finement that exist here, along with the absence of all false delicacy. 
The fondness of English women (even in the highest rank) for out- 
of-door life, horses, dogs, fine cattle, animals of all kinds, — for their 
grounds, and in short every thing that belongs to their homes — 
their real, unaffected knowledge of, and pleasure in these things, and 
the unreserved way in which they talk about them, would startle 
some of my young friends at home, who are educated in the fash- 
ionable boarding-school of Madame to consider all such 

things "vulgar," and " unlady-like." I accompanied the younger 
members of the family here this morning, in an exploration of the 
mysteries of the place. No sooner did we make our appearance out 



SOCIETY. 545 

of doors, than we were saluted by dogs of all degrees, and each had 
the honor of an interview and pei'sonal reception, which seemed to 
be productive of pleasure on both sides. Then some of the horses 
were brought out of the stable, and a parley took place between 
them and their fair mistresses ; some favorite cows were to be petted 
and looked after, and their good points were descanted on with 
knowledge and discrimination ; and there was the basse cour, with 
its various population, all discussed and shown with such lively, un- 
aftected interest, that I soon saw my fair companions were " born to 
love pigs and chickens," I have said nothing about the garden, be- 
cause you know that it is especially the lady's province here. An 
English woman with no taste for gardening, would be as great a 
marvel as an angel without wings. And now, were these fresh look- 
ing girls, who have so thoroughly entered into these rustic enjoy- 
ments, mere country lasses and dairy maids ? By no means. They 
will converse with you in three or four languages ; are thoroughly 
well-grounded in modern literature ; sketch from nature with the 
ease of professional artists, and will sit down to the piano-forte and 
give you an old ballad, or the finest German or Italian music, as 
your taste may dictate. And yet many of my young countrywomen 
of their age, whose education — wholly intended for the drawing- 
I'oom — is far below what I have described, would have half fainted 
with terror, and half blushed with false delicacy, twenty times in the 
course of the morning, with the discussions of the farm-yard, meadow 
and stables, which properly belong to a wholesome country life, and 
are not in the slightest degree at variance with real delicacy and re- 
finement, I very well know that there are many sensibly educated 
young women at home, who have the same breadth of cultivation, 
and the same variety of resources, that make the English women 
such truly agreeable companions ; but alas, I also know that there 
are many whose beau ideal is bounded by a circle that contains the 
latest fashionable dance for the feet, the latest fashionable novel for 
the head, and the latest fashionable fancy-work for the fingers. 

If I have unconsciously run into something like a sermon, it is 

from the feeling that among my own lovely countrywomen is to 

be found the ground-work of the most perfectly attractive feminine 

character in the world. But of late, their education has been a httle 

35 



646 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

vitiated by the introduction of the flimsiest points of French social 
requirements — rather than the more solid and estimable qualities 
which belong to English domestic life. The best social development 
in America will, doubtless, finally result from an internal movement 
springing from the very bosom of our institutions ; but before that 
can happen, a great many traits and refinements will necessarily be 
borrowed from the old world — and the larger interests, healthier 
home tastes, and more thorough education of English women, seem 
to me hardly rated so highly by us as they deserve. Go to Paris, 
if you will, to see the most perfect taste in dress, and the finest 
charm of merely external manners, but make the acquaintance of 
English women if you wish to get a high idea of feminine character 
as it should be, to command your siucerest and most lasting admi- 
ration and respect. 



vin. 

THE LONDON PARKS. 



September, 1850. 



MY DEAR SIR : — If my English letters have told you mostly 
of country places, and country life, it is not that I have been 
insensible to sight-seeing in town. London is a great veorld in it- 
self Ink enough has, hovrever, already been expended upon it to 
fill the Grand Canal, and still it is a city which no one can under- 
stand without seeing it. Its vastness, its grave aspect of business, 
the grandeur of some parts, the poverty of others, the air of order, 
and the taint of smoke, that pervade it every where, are its great 
features. To an American eye, accustomed to the clear, pure, trans- 
atlantic atmosphere, there is, at first, something really repulsive in 
the black and dingy look of almost all buildings, whether new or 
old (not painted within the last month). In some of the oldest, 
like Westminster Abbey, it . is an absolute covering of dirty soot 
That hoary look of age which belongs to a time-honored building, 
and which mellows and softens all its lines and forms, is as delicious 
to the sense of sight as the tone of old pictures, or the hue of old 
wine. But there is none of this in the antiquity of London. You 
are repelled by the sooty exterior of all the old facades, as you would 
be by that of a chimney-sweep who has made the circuit of fifty 
flues in a morning, and whose outer man would almost defy an en- 
tire hydropathic institution. 

If I have shown you the dark side of the picture of the great 
Metropolis, first, let me hasten to present you with some of its lights. 



648 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

which made a much stronger impression upon me. I mean the 
grand and beautiful parks of London. 

If every thing one sees in England leads one to the convniction 
that the English do not, like the French and Germans, possess the 
genius of high art, there is no denying that they far surpass all 
other nations in a profound sentiment of nature. Take, for exam- 
ple, the West end of London, and what do you see there ? Mag- 
nificent palaces, enormous piles of dwellings, in the shape of " ter- 
races," " squares," and " places " — the same costly town architecture 
that you find every where in the better portions of populous and 
wealthy capitals. But if you ask me what is the peculiar and dis- 
tinguishing luxury of this part of London, I answer, in its holding 
the country in its lap.. In the midst of London lie, in an almost 
connected series, the great parks. Hyde Park, Regent's Park, St. 
James's and Green Parks. These names are almost as familiar to 
you as the Battery and Washington Square, and I fear you labor 
under the delusion that the former are only an enlarged edition of 
the latter. Believe me, you have fallen into as great an error as if 
you took the " Brick meeting-house " for a suggestion of St. Peter's. 
The London parks are actually like districts of open countr}^ — mead- 
ows and fields, country estates, lakes and streams, gardens and 
shrubberies, with as much variety as if you were in the heart of 
Cambridgeshire, and as much seclusion in some parts, at certain 
hours, as if you were on a farm in the interior of Pennsylvania. 
And the whole is laid out and treated, in the main, with a broad 
and noble feeling of natural beauty, quite the reverse of what you 
see in the public parks of the continental cities. This makes these 
parks doubly refreshing to citizens tired of straight lines and for- 
mal streets, while the contrast heightens the natural charm. Unac- 
customed to this breadth of imitation of nature — this creating a 
piece of wide-spread country lai'ge enough to shut oiit for the time 
all trace of the houses, though actually in the midst of a city, an 
American is always inclined to believe (notwithstanding the abun- 
dance of evidence to the contrary) that the London parks are a bit 
of the 7iative country, surprised and fairly taken prisoner by the 
outstretched arms of this giant of modern cities. 

St. James's Park and Green Park are enormous pieces of real 



THE LONDON PARKS. 549 

pleasure-ground scenery — with broad glades of turf, noble trees, 
rich masses of shrubbery and flowering plants — lakes filled with 
rare water-fowl, and the proj^er surroundings, in fact, to two royal 
palaces and the finest private houses in London ; but still, all open 
to the enjoyment of hundreds of thousands daily. You look out 
upon the forest of verdure in Green Park, as you sit in the windows 
of our present minister's fine mansion in Piccadilly, astonished at 
the breadth and beauty of the green landscape, which seems to you 
more like a glimpse into one of the loveliest pleasui-e-grounds on 
the Hudson, than the belongings of the great Metropolis. 

But the pride of London is in Hyde Park and Kensington 
Gardens, which, together, contain nearly eight hundred acres, so 
that you have to make a circuit of nearly seven miles to go over 
the entire circumference. If you enter Hyde I'ark between seven 
and eight in the morning, when all the world of fashion is asleep, 
you will fancy, after you have left the great gateways and the fine 
coUosal statue of Achilles far enough behind you to be quite out of 
sight, that you have made a mistake and strolled out into the coun- 
try unawares. Scarcely a person is to be seen at this time of day, 
unless it be some lonely foot-passenger, who looks as if he had lost 
his way, or his wits, at this early hour. But you see broad grass 
meadows with scattered groups of trees, not at all unlike what you 
remember on the smooth banks of the Connecticut, and your im- 
pression that you have got astray and quite out of the reach of the 
Metropolis, is confirmed by hearing the tinkle of sheep-bells and 
seeing flocks of these and other pastoral creatures, feeding quietly 
on the short turf of the secluded portions of the park. You walk 
on till you are quite weary, without finding the end of the matter 
— for Kensington Gardens, which is only another and a larger park, 
is but the continuation of Hyde Park — and you turn back in a sort 
of bewildered astonishment at the vastness and wealth of a city 
which can afford such an illimitable space for the pleasure of air 
and exercise of its inhabitants. 

That is Hyde Park in dishabille. Now go in again with me in 
the afternoon, any time during the London season, and you shall 
see the same place in full dress, and so altered and animated by 



560 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

the dramatis personce, that you will hardly identify it as the locale 
of the solitary country ramble you took in the morning. 

It is half past four in the afternoon, and the fashionable world 
(who dine at seven all over England) is now taking its morning air- 
ing. If you will sit down on one of these solid-looking seats under 
the shadow of this large elm, you will see such a display of equi- 
page, pass you in the cousre of a single hour, as no other part of the 
world can parallel. This broad, well-macadamized carriage-drive, 
which makes a circuit of some four or five miles in Hyde Park, is, 
at this moment, fairly filled with private carriages of all degrees. 
Here are heavy coaches and four, with postilions and footmen, and 
massive carriages emblazoned with family crests and gay with all 
the brilliancy of gold and crimson liveries ; yonder superb barouche 
with eight spirited horses and numerous outriders, is the royal 
equipage, and as you lean forward to catch a glimpse of the sov- 
ereign, the close coach of the hero of Waterloo, the servants with 
cockades in their hats, dashes past you the other way at a rate so 
rapid that you doubt if he who rides within, is out merely for an 
airing. Yonder tasteful turn-out with liveries of a peculiar delicate 
mulberry, with only a single tall figure in the coach, is the Duke of 
Devonshire's. Here is the carriage of one of the foreign ambassa- 
dors, less showy and lighter than the English vehicles, and that 
pretty phaeton drawn by two beautiful blood horses, is, you see, 
driven by a woman of extraordinary beauty, with extraordinary 
skill. She is quite alone, and behind her sits a footman with his 
arms folded, his face as grave and solemn as stones that have ser- 
mons in them. As you express your surprise at the air of conscious 
" grace with which the lady drives," your London friend quietly re- 
marks, " Yes, but she is not a lady." Unceasingly the carriages 
roU by, and you are less astonished at the numberless superb equi- 
pages or the beauty of the horses, than at the old-world air of the 
footmen in gold and silver lace, gaudy liveries, spotless linen and 
snowy silk stockings. Some of the grand old coachmen in full- 
powdered wigs, decked in all the glory of laced coats and silken 
calves, held the ribbons with such a conscisus air of imposing 
grandeur that I willingly accepted them as the tree-poeonias, the 
most blooming blossoms of this parterre of equipage. It seemed 



THE LONDON PARKS. 551 

to me that there may be something comfortable in thus hanging all 
the trappings of station on the backs of coachmen and footmen, if 
one must be bothered with such things — so that one may lean back 
quietly in plain clothes in the well-stufFed seat of his private 
carriage. 

But do not let us loiter away all our time in a single scene in 
Hyde Park. A few steps farther on is Rotten Row (rather an odd 
name for an elegant place), the chosen arena of fashionable eques- 
trians. The English know too well the pleasures of riding, to gal- 
lop on horseback over hard pavements, and Rotten Row is a soft 
circle of a couple of miles, in the park, railed off for this purpose, 
where youi- horse's feet have an elastic surface to travel over. Hun- 
dreds of fair equestrians, with fathers, brothers, or fi-iends, for com- 
panions, are here enjoying a more lively and spirited exercise, than 
the languid inmates of the carriages we have just left behind us. 
The English women rise in the saddle, like male riders, and at first 
sight they look awkwardly and less graceful to our eyes — but you 
soon see that they also sit more firmly and ride more boldly, than 
ladies on our side of the water. 

To stand by and see others ride, seems to me to be always too 
tantalizing to be long endured as a pastime — even where the scene 
is as full of novelty and variety as this. Let us go on, therefore. 
This beautiful stream of water, which Avould be called a pretty 
" creek " at home, is the Serpentine River, which has been made to 
meander gracefully through Hyde Park, and wonderfully does its 
bright waters enhance the beauty of the verdure and the charm of 
the whole landscape. As we stand on the bridge, and look up and 
down the river, amid the rich groves and across the green lawns, the 
city wholly shut out by groves and plantations, how finely one feels 
the contrast of art and nature to be realized here. 

That delicious band of music which you hear now, is in Ken- 
sington Gardens, and only a belt of trees and yonder iron gate, sepa- 
rate the latter from Hyde Park. Let us join the crowd of persons 
of all ages, collected in the great walk, under the shade of gigantic 
elm trees, to hear the music. It is a well-known air of Donizetti's, 
and as your eye glances over the company, perhaps some five or six 
thousand persons, who form the charmingly grouped, out-of-door 



652 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

audience (for the afternoon is a bright one), and as you see the ra- 
diant pleasure-sparkle in a thousand happy faces, y«ung and old, 
who are here enjoying a little pleasant mingling of heaven and 
earth in an innocent manner, you cannot but be struck with the 
fact that, if there is a duty belonging to good governments, next to 
protecting the lives and property of the people, it is that of provid- 
ing public parks for the pent-up inhabitants of cities. 

" Imperial Kensington " is not only more spacious and grand 
than Hyde Park, but it has a certain antique stateliness, which 
touches my fancy and pleases me more. The trees are larger and 
more grove-like, and the broad glades of soft green turf are of a 
darker and richer green, and invite you to a more private and in- 
timate confidence than any portions of Hyde Park. The grand 
avenue of ehiis at the farther part of Kensington Gardens, coming 
suddenly into it from the farther Baysvvater Gate, is one of the 
noblest geometric groves in any city, and was laid out and planted, 
I believe, in King William's time. An avenue some hundreds of 
years old, is always majestic and venerable, and when it adds great 
extent and fine keeping, like this, is really a grand thing. And yet, 
perhaps, not one American in fifty that visits Hyde Park, ever gets 
far enough into the depths of its enjoyment to explore this avenue 
in Kensington Gardens. 

No carriages or horses are permitted in Kensington Gardens, 
but its broad glades and shadowy lawns are sacred to pedestrians, 
and are especially the gambol-fields of thousands of lovely children, 
who, attended by their nurses, make a kind of infant Arcadia of these 
solemn old groves of the monarch of Dutch tastes. Even the dingy 
old brick Palace of Kensington, which overlooks one side of the 
great lawn, cannot chase away the bright dimples from tlie rosy 
faces of the charming children one sees here, and the symbols of 
natural aristocracy — beauty and intelligence — set upon these young 
faces, were to my eyes a far more agreeable study than those of 
accident, birth, and fortune, which are so gaudily blazoned forth in 
Hyde Park. 

My London friend, who evidently enjoys our astonishment at 
the vastness of the London Parks, and the apparent display and 
real enjoyment they minister to, calculates thai not less than 50,000 



THE LONDON PARKS. 653 

pereons have been out, on foot, on horseback, or in carriages, this 
afternoon, and adds that upon review days, or other occasions of 
particular brilliancy, he has known 200,000 persons to be in Hyde 
Park and Kensington Gardens at once. 

You may be weary of parks to-day, but I shall not allow you 
to escape me without a glance at Regent's Park, another link in the 
rural scenery of this part of London. Yes, here are three hundred 
and thirty-six acres more of lawn, ornamental plantations, drives 
and carriage roads. Regent's Park has a younger look than any of 
the others in the West End of London, having only been planted 
about twenty-five or thirty years — but it is a beautiful surface, con- 
taining a great variety of different scenes within itself. Here are, 
for instance, the Royal Botanic Garden, with its rich collection of 
plants and its beautiful flower-shows, which I have already described 
to you ; and the Zoological Garden, some twenty acres in extent, 
where you may see almost every living animal as nearly as possible 
in the same circumstances as in its native country. Over the lawns 
walk the giraffe or cameleopard, led by Arabs in oriental costume ; 
among the leafy avenues you see elephants waddling along, with 
loads of laughing, half-frightened children on their backs ; down in a 
deep pool of water you peer upon the sluggish hippopotamus ; you 
gaze at the soft eyes of the gazelle as she feeds in her little private 
paddock, and you feed the black swans that are floating along, with 
innumerable other rare aquatic birds, upon the surface of glassy lakes 
of fresh water. And the " Zoological " is just as full of people as Hyde 
Park, though of a totally different appearance — many students in 
natural history, some fashionable loungers, chiefly women, more cu- 
rious strangers, and most of all, boys and girls, feeding their juvenile 
appetite for the marvellous, by seeing the less astonished animals 
fed. 

And whose are those pretty country residences that you see in 
the very midst of another part of Regent's Park — beautiful Italian 
^^llas and ornamental cottages, embowered in trees of their own, 
and only divided from the open park by a light railing and belts of 
shrubbery ? These are the villas of certain favored nobles, who have 
at large cost realized, as you see, the perfection of a residence in 
town, viz., a country-house in the midst of a great park, which is 



554 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

itself in the midst of a great city. In these favored sites the owners 
have the luxury of quiet and rural surroundings, usually confined to 
the country, with the whole of the great woi'ld of May Fair and 
politics within ten or twenty minutes' walk. 

And now, having been through more than a thousand acres of 
park scenery, and witnessed the enjoyments of tens of thousands of 
all classes, to whom these parks are open from sunrise to nine o'clock 
at night, you will naturally ask me if these luxuries are wholly con- 
fined to the West End of London. By no means. In almost all 
parts of London are "squares" — open places of eight or ten acres, 
filled with trees, shrubs, grass, and fountains — like what we call 
" parks " in our cities at home. Besides these, a large new space 
called the Victoria Park, of two hundred and ninety acres, has been 
laid out lately in the East part of London, expressly for the recrea- 
tion and amusement of the poorer classes who are confined to that 
part of the town. 

You see what noble breathing-places London has, within its own 
boundaries, for the daily health and recreation of its citizens. But 
these by no means comprise all the rural pleasures of its inhabitants. 
There are three other magnificent public places within half an hour 
of London, which are also enjoyed daily by thousands and tens of 
thousands. I mean Hampton Court, Richmond Park, and the 
National Gardens at Kew. 

Hampton Court is the favorite resort of the middle classes on 
holidays, and a pleasanter sight than that spot on such occasions, — 
when it is thronged by immense numbers of citizens, their wives 
and children, with all the riches of that grand old palace, its picture- 
galleries, halls, and splendid apartments, its two parks and its im- 
mense pleasure-grounds thrown open to them, is not easily found. 
Indeed, a man may be dull enough to care for neither palaces nor 
parks, for neither nature nor art, but he can scarcely be human, or 
have a spark of sympathy in the fortunes of his race, if he can wan- 
der without interest through these magnificent halls, still in perfect 
order, built with the most kingly prodigality by the most ambitious 
and powerful of subjects — Wolsey : halls that were afterwards suc- 
cessively the home of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, James, Charles and 
Cromwell ; halls where Shakspeare played and Sidney wrote, but 



THE LONDON PARKS. 555 

which, with all their treasures of art, are now the people^s palace and 
normal school of enjoyment. 

I am neither going to weary you with catalogues of pictures or 
dissertations upon palace architecture. But I must give you one 
more impression — that of the magnificent surroundings of Hampton 
Court, Conjure up a piece of country of diversified rich meadow 
surface, some five or six miles in circuit ; imagine, around the pal- 
ace, some forty or fifty acres of gardens, mostly in the ancient taste, 
with pleached alleys (Queen Mary's bower among them), sloping 
banks of soft turf, huge orange trees in boxes, and a " wilderness " 
or labyrinth where you may lose yourself in the most intricate per- 
plexity of shrubs ; imagine an avenue a mile and a quarter long, of 
the most gigantic horse-chestnuts you ever beheld, with long vistas 
of velvet turf and highly-dressed garden scenery around them ; ima- 
gine other parts of the park where you see on all sides, only great 
masses and groups of oaks and elms of centuries' growth, and all the 
freedom of luxuriant nature, with a broad carpet of grass stretching 
on all sides ; with distant portions of the park quite wild-looking, 
dotted with great hawthorn trees of centuries' growth, with the tan- 
gled copse and fragrant fern which are the belongings of our own 
forests, and then fill up the scene in the neighborhood of the palace 
and gardens as I have before said, on a holiday, with thousands of 
happy faces, while in the secluded parts of the park the timid deer 
flits before you, the birds stealthily build their nests, and the insect's 
hum fills the silent air, and you have some faint idea of the value of 
such a possession for the population of a great city to pass their 
holidays in, or to go pic-nic-ing ! 

I am writing you a long letter, but the parlcoinumie is upon me, 
and I will not let the ink dry in my pen without a word about 
Richmond Great Park — also free to the public, and also within the 
reach of the Londoner who seeks for air and exercise. Richmond 
Great Park was formerly a royal hunting-ground, but, like all the 
parks I have mentioned, has been given up to the people — at least 
the free enjoyment of it. It is the largest of all the parks I have 
described, being eight miles round, and containing two thousand 
two hundred and fifty acres. It is a piece of magnificent forest tract 
— open forest, with grass, tufts of hazel, thorns and ferns, the surface 



556 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 

gently undulating, and dotted with grand old oaks — extremely like 
what you see on a still larger scale in Kentucky. Its solitude and 
seclusion, within sight of London — are almost startling. The land 
is high, and from one side of it your eye wanders over the valley of 
Richmond — with the Thames — here only a silvery looking stream 
winding through it — a world-renowned view, and one whose sylvan 
beauty it is impossible to praise too highly. Just in this part of the 
j)ark, and commanding this superb view, with the towers of Windsor 
Castle in the distance on one side, and the dome of St. Paul's on the 
other, and all the antique sylvan seclusion of the old wood around 
it, stands a modest little cottage — the favorite summer residence of 
Lord John Russell, the use of which has been given him by his sove- 
reign. A more unambitious looking home, and one better calcu- 
lated to restore the faculties of an over-worked premier, after a day's 
toil in Downing-street, it would be impossible to conceive. 

I drove through Richmond Great Park in the carriage of the 
Belgian minister, and his accomplished wife, who was my cicerone, 
stopped the coachman for a moment near this place, in order that 
she might point out to me an old oak that had a story to tell. " It 
was here — just under this tree," she added (her eyes gleaming 
slightly with womanly indignation as she said it), " that the cruel 
Henry stood, and saw with his own eyes, the signal made from the 
Tower of London (five miles off), which told him that Anne Boleyn 
was at that moment beheaded !" I thanked God that oak trees 
were longer lived than bad monarchs, and that modern civilization 
would no longer permit such butchery in a christian country. 

I will close this letter with only a single remark. We fancy, 
not without reason, in New-York, that we have a great city, and 
that the introduction of Croton water, is so marvellous a luxury in 
the way of health, that nothing more need be done for the comfort 
of half a million of people. In crossing the Atlantic, a young New- 
Yorker, who was rabidly patriotic, and who boasted daily of tlie 
superiority of our beloved commercial metropolis over every city on 
the globe, was our most amusing companion. I chanced to meet 
him one afternoon a few days after we landed, in one of the great 
parks in London, in the midst of all the sylvan beauty and human 
enjoyment, I have attempted to describe to you. He threw up his 



THE LONDON PARKS. 557 

arms as he recognized me, and exclaimed — " Good heavens ! what a 
scene, and / took some Londoners to the steps of the City Hall last 
summer, to show them the Park of New- York ! " I consoled him 
with the advice to be less conceited thereafter in his cockneyism, 
and to show foreigners the Hudson and Niagara, instead of the 
City Hall and Bowling Green. But the question may well be asked, 
Is New-York really not rich enough, or is there absolutely not land 
enough in America to give our citizens public parks of more than 
ten acres ? 



THE END. 



3^77 



